Why do behavior incidents increase when routines change?
In this video, Dr. Lucas Harrington explains that behavior incidents often increase when routines change because unpredictability disrupts emotional regulation, mental organization, and a sense of safety—especially for autistic students who rely on consistent structure to understand and navigate their environment.
Transcript
Why do behavior incidents increase when routines change? Okay, so a lot of that is going to be a stress response. Some of that is from inherently being stressed by change. Human beings of any neurotype generally depend on a certain amount of ritual and routine to anchor themselves in the world. We saw this with the COVID lockdowns when people were really impacted by missing their traditions. And because of the way the autistic brain is wired, those little day-to-day traditions may be just as important as the big yearly events. So for them rescheduling or skipping something like music class might feel like, why can't you just reschedule or skip your favorite holiday?
And then sometimes it's not just emotional, they actually need the routines to mentally make sense of what's happening. So an example of a mentally organizing routine that neurotypicals might relate to is the alphabet song. A lot of people of all neurotypes still need the song as a mnemonic when they're alphabetizing. And if you start messing with it, like try singing the alphabet song, but move the LMNOP to the end and skip all of the vowels. It's hard! You know, hopefully this illustrates why trying to make sense of modified schedule can melt your students' brains a bit.
And finally, a lot of times autistic people have trouble inferring what to expect. So when things stay on routine, we know that it's safe, or at least which unsafe things to be prepared for. But when things get unpredictable, we don't know if we're getting thrown into a situation where we're way over our heads. That happens a lot in environments that are tailored to other people's strengths and needs, not to yours. And sometimes it's not even a stress response. You know, maybe they're just figuring out what is and isn't allowed in a new situation. So either way, helping students know what to expect will usually help those routine changes go more smoothly. You can learn more about supporting autistic students through our professional development. Go to socialcipher.com to learn more.
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