Teaching Self-Advocacy Skills in Individuals with Autism

Part 1: Understanding Self-Advocacy

Teaching Self-Advocacy Skills Self-advocacy is a critical life skill that allows individuals, particularly those with developmental or communication challenges such as autism, to express their needs, preferences, and rights. In the context of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), teaching self-advocacy often begins with teaching manding — the ability to request items, actions, or assistance. In Part 1 of this article, we explore what self-advocacy skills are, how they are understood within the Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) framework and their relationship to manding. In Part 2, we will discuss how ABA principles are used to systematically teach these essential skills.

What are Self-Advocacy Skills?

Self-advocacy refers to the ability of an individual to effectively communicate, convey, negotiate, or assert their own interests, desires, needs, and rights. It is a foundational skill for autonomy, dignity, and inclusion. For neurodivergent individuals, particularly those with communication or cognitive differences, explicit teaching of self-advocacy is often required to help them navigate daily life and long-term goals, from early intervention transitioning into adulthood. Examples of self-advocacy skills include:

Negotiating is a self-advocacy skill.

• Requesting a break when feeling overwhelmed.

• Refusing or rejecting undesired items, activities, or touch.

• Asking for help when experiencing difficulty.

• Communicating preferences such as food, clothing, or learning tasks.

• Reporting pain or discomfort.

• Expressing accommodation needs, such as needing space or coping tools.

• Negotiating for extra time (e.g., “Can I do this later?”).

• Correcting misinterpretations, such as stating “No, that’s not what I meant.”

Self-advocacy is a form of communication. Like any forms of communication, the mode of communication may be vocal (i.e. spoken), gestural, via an AAC, or involve written or pictorial communication depending on the individual's abilities and communication modality.

Self-Advocacy in the Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) Framework

Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) is a person-centred framework that integrates values-based practice with behavioral science. Within PBS, self-advocacy is not only encouraged but is viewed as a preventative and proactive strategy to reduce behaviours of concern.

Withdrawal is a behavior of concern.

Challenging behaviours often serve a communicative function. When individuals are not taught adequate, appropriate, or effective means to advocate for themselves, they may resort in behaviours that is commonly categorized as aggression, self-injury, elopement, or withdrawal.

PBS emphasizes:

• Empowerment: Helping individuals access their environment through skill-building.

• Function-based supports: Identifying the communicative intent behind behaviours.

• Environmental adaptation: Supporting people by reducing triggers and increasing access to reinforcement through appropriate channels within their immediate environment

• Dignity and rights: Ensuring individuals have control over decisions that affect them.

Teaching self-advocacy aligns with all of these tenets. It enhances quality of life and reduces restrictive practices by equipping individuals with socially appropriate tools to communicate effectively and independently.

Are Self-Advocacy and Manding the Same?

Manding (requesting), coined by B.F. Skinner in his text Verbal Operants, is a specific type of verbal operant (i.e. communicative function) where a person requests something that they want or need. It is driven by motivation; and the consequence of a mand behaviour (i.e. the act of requesting) is specific: the individual access exactly to what was requested. Self-advocacy includes manding but goes beyond it. It involves a broader range of communicative behaviours that may include:

• Tacts (labeling one’s own emotions or experiences),

• Intraverbals (responding to social questions about preferences or feelings),

• Rejection/Protest (which may or may not be taught as a mand),

• Negotiation or clarification.

For example:

• Saying “I want water” is a mand.

• Saying “I need a break” is a self-advocacy mand.

• Saying “I don’t want to do that” or “That hurts me” is self-advocacy but may not fit the strict definition of a mand unless it results in escape from a demand.

So while many self-advocacy skills can be taught as mand training, it is important to recognise and plan for the broader functional communication repertoire.

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Look out for Part 2 of this blog post, where we will delve into how the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) are used to teach these essential skills.

Written by: Alexa Goh

Edited by: Raja Nishah