Looking Beyond the Behaviour
What Might Self-Injurious Behaviour Be Communicating?
When a child or young person is hurting themselves, our understandable instinct is to focus on stopping the behaviour.
But sometimes an important first question is:
What might this behaviour be communicating?
For some neurodivergent children and young people, self-injurious behaviour may occur at times of significant distress, overwhelm or dysregulation — particularly when they are unable to communicate what they need in another way.
There may be many contributing factors, including:
• Anxiety or frustration
• Sensory overload
• Communication difficulties
• Changes to routines or expectations
• Too many demands
• Tiredness, hunger or physical discomfort
• Feeling a loss of control
• Accumulated overwhelm
And the person themselves may not necessarily be able to explain why it is happening — particularly when they are already overwhelmed.
In the moment, lots of questions may therefore add to the cognitive load. Reducing demands and sensory input where possible, using simple language, creating space and allowing time for regulation may be more helpful.
When things are calmer, we can explore different ways of communicating needs, emotions and overwhelm. These don’t always need to rely on spoken language. Visuals, colours, symbols, gestures, written words, emojis or other agreed methods can all provide alternative ways to communicate.
It can also be useful to look for patterns:
What happened beforehand?
What was the environment like?
Had something changed?
Were there lots of demands?
What happened afterwards?
And what appeared to help?
The aim isn’t simply to manage a behaviour.
It’s to understand the person experiencing it.
And because self-injurious behaviour can carry a risk of harm, it is important that families and those supporting a child or young person seek appropriate professional advice rather than feeling they have to understand or manage it alone.
Sometimes behaviour is communication.
Our job is to remain curious enough to ask what it might be telling us.
Useful resources
- National Autistic Society – Self-injurious behaviour
Self-injurious behaviour guidance - Challenging Behaviour Foundation – Self-injurious behaviour
Self-injurious behaviour resources and guidance - NICE – Challenging behaviour and learning disabilities (NG11)
NICE guideline NG11 - NICE – Learning disabilities and behaviour that challenges: service design and delivery (NG93)
NICE guideline NG93 - National Autistic Society – Autism and self-harm
Autism and self-harm guidance - NHS – Where to get help for self-harm
NHS self-harm support and advice
If you’d like a confidential chat about this topic, please reach out: https://calendly.com/davidequalitywatters/book_a_call
David, a former Specialist Educational Needs and Trauma-informed teacher, is an Inclusion and Wellbeing Consultant, with 25+ years of experience, training across all strands of Diversity & Inclusion, who champions the right of every individual to achieve their fullest potential, both personally and professionally, so that they are not held back by the limiting labels imposed upon them by others.
He is an Associate Consultant and Trainer for the Onvero, EMBED Inclusion, and FireBird, and is represented as a Public Speaker by Champions Speakers, Diversity and Inclusion Speakers Agency, The Motivational Speakers Agency, All American Entertainment , and Evolve Talent and Speakers .
Additionally, he is the founder and coordinator of the international Give ‘em Hope Campaign ; Marriage Equality Pioneer who successfully campaigned for a change in marriage legislation by taking a legal case to the European Court of Human Rights with Equal Love UK and writer of the soon to be published LGBTQ+ Role Model book, Never Blend In .
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