Autism Earnings Chart for Behaviors

The Earnings Chart

At one point, my child had an earnings chart at home that was linked to his school day behavior.

For example, if he had earned stickers at school, he was assigned those stickers to that day.

Then, at home, he would earn the specific chart item for that day.

There were five different items per week listed on the earnings chart. These items were typically “obsession-related,” meaning they were items that my child really wanted and had to work hard to earn with good behavior at school.

I called this chart, “Autism Earning Chart for Behaviors.”

My child knew his behavior at school is still linked to some kind of “earnings” at home. We had used the visual aid, an actual chart, at home for years.

Here are some charts as examples: http://www.freeprintablebehaviorcharts.com/autism_and_routines.htm

How did ours work?

On the “good” days, my child received his stickers. These were rewarded by his aide.

What about the “bad” days?

Those were a challenge.

Even though my child was used to his earnings chart, he was never pleased to hear that he could not get his preferred item for that day.

That led to behaviors and/or meltdowns. It was hard works sometimes.

Of course, we preferred the good days, but we stuck to our chart even on those rough days.

How did we handle working with the chart?

First, we always looked at the chart before going to school. I reminded him of its meaning.

His chart consisted of his daily school schedule as given to me by his teacher. We would look at it together right before school.

I’d say something like, “Hey, you have social studies today. And then Language Arts.”

I would try to highlight a few of the more important times of day when he may have trouble earning his stickers. (Typically, those times do not include recess or P.E. or the times of the day when I know he can have a better shot at regulating himself. The times I’m talking about are longer classes and/or transitions.)

Second, I would discuss recent past “X’s” on the walk to school. “Are you going to try to listen to your teacher today?” would be a  question I might ask. I would even follow that with, “Remember last Tuesday when the teacher asked you to stop drawing and you didn’t listen to her? You got an ‘X’ for that. I don’t want you to get another one.”

Did it work well?

I am my child’s biggest fan. We root for him to succeed and we’ve always done our best to help him succeed.

His father and I want him to have his 30 minutes of computer time at night and/or be able to have some time to play with his toys.

I believe autism earnings chart for behavior works, we used it successfully for years.

When a strategy is implemented and it works, keeps using it. That’s my advice.

I help my child prepare for each school day. We discuss his “bad” days with him.

I definitely make sure to congratulate him on each and every “good” day.

We want to create a positive school experience and we feel our earnings chart helps us to do that.

School is hard for our kids. Use whatever tools you can to help them succeed.