Classroom in the bathroom

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In the middle of an activity, my son would run into the bathroom.  Giggling, he would wait for me to call him, or for me to go to the bathroom and to prompt him to return to our study area.  He would not cry when I lead him back to his chair.  He would laugh and drop on the floor because every part of his body would be so sensitive that he would be tickled by the slightest touch.  He would need several minutes to calm down.  It was December 2011 and we just started
homeschooling.

Getting away from tasks was a strong motivation for him to hide in the bathroom.  It's common among children with autism to escape from demand, but it also a great stumbling block to learning.  How can he learn if he runs away from every opportunity?  I learned from the online training on providing ABA-based intervention to children with autism that I took that to get rid of unwanted behavior, the function of such behavior must be known, and that the situation must be manipulated so that the child will not get rewarded for such behavior.  If a behavior's function is to escape from demand, the behavior must never be rewarded by letting the child get a break from the tasks.

How can one make hiding in the bathroom less rewarding?  To discourage him from running away from me during an activity, I moved our study area in a corner where he needed to exert extra effort to escape.  It didn't work.  I tried giving him frequent breaks.  It also didn't help.  The only strategy that succeeded was to turn the bathroom into a study area.  Each time he ran away, I would carry the study table and his chair, follow him to the bathroom where I would ask him to continue working on the activity.  Soon, the lure of hiding in the bathroom began to wane.


He now remains seated throughout a homeschooling session, and would only get up from his chair during legitimate break time.