Understanding Posting Behaviours in Autistic Children: Play Schemas

Compulsive Posting in Autistic Children: Structured Strategies

Autistic Children often engage in sensory-seeking behaviours that may seem puzzling or even frustrating for parents and teachers. One such behaviour, compulsive “posting,” involves placing small items into gaps or spaces, leading to the loss of toys, puzzle pieces, PECS symbols and pencils. If you’re finding that your non-verbal, sensory-seeking students are constantly posting items through gaps, you’re not alone. This behaviour is not only common but also meaningful. For many young children, repetitive posting satisfies sensory needs and facilitates a better understanding of cause-and-effect relationships, control, and spatial awareness. This article explores why children engage in compulsive posting and offers structured, constructive solutions to meet this need.

Understanding the Purpose Behind Posting Behaviour

For a child, especially one who is non-verbal and has limited language comprehension, posting items may serve a deeper developmental purpose. The predictable disappearance of objects into small spaces provides valuable sensory feedback and a feeling of control in a complex world. For a child who may struggle with verbal communication, posting can be a form of engagement with their environment and a way to exert control over their surroundings.

This posting behaviour aligns with play theory, specifically the Trajectory and Containing/Enveloping schemas. Children engaging in the Trajectory schema are exploring how objects move through space. In contrast, those focused on the Containing schema enjoy placing items into contained spaces and experimenting with boundaries and spatial relationships.

Responses to Posting Behaviours:

When a child is exploring through posting behaviours, our reactions can inadvertently reinforce the activity. Consider that searching for items, showing frustration, or creating significant attention around the posting may make the behaviour more appealing.

Instead:

• Remain neutral when discovering posted items
• Avoid making the retrieval of objects into an exciting game
• Redirect calmly to appropriate posting activities without expressing frustration
• Acknowledge the interest in posting whilst guiding towards designated activities

Remember that this exploration is both natural and valuable for development. Rather than viewing it as challenging behaviour, recognise it as the child’s way of understanding their environment through schema play. Many autistic children particularly benefit from this type of sensory and spatial exploration.

If you say anything use matter-of-fact language:

“Let’s use the posting station instead of the gap”

Rather than:

“Oh no, not again! We need to find all those pieces!”

Structured Approaches to Address Posting Behaviour

Given the underlying developmental needs that posting satisfies, it’s beneficial to offer structured ways to channel this behaviour constructively. Here’s a multi-step approach that combines immediate solutions with long-term strategies for supporting sensory needs and understanding spatial relationships.

Create Designated Posting Stations

Redirecting a child’s behaviour from random gaps to structured posting stations helps to meet their sensory and developmental needs in a controlled way. By setting up these areas, children can experience the sensory and visual satisfaction of posting in designated, predictable spaces. 

One thing people often do that makes these stations less effective “he just ignores these activities” is make them look too much like lessons or work. Don’t set them up on the desk. Put them in corners, use gorilla tape to stick them on the side of cupboards. Use zip-ties to attach them to fences.

Consider using:

• Clear tubes with collection trays at the bottom, allowing the child to watch items travel down and retrieve them easily. This can be disguised by attaching a bit of drain pipe to the side of a cupboard.
• Posting boxes with different-sized slots to challenge their fine motor skills and problem-solving abilities.
• Transparent containers so they can observe the items inside, satisfying curiosity and minimising the urge to post into hidden spaces.
• Water play stations with tubes and floating objects for a sensory-rich, cause-and-effect learning experience.

These solutions create clear, satisfying alternatives while preserving classroom items and reducing frustration.

Incorporate Structured Sensory Activities

In addition to designated posting stations, structured activities can provide sensory input while also teaching new skills like fine motor coordination and problem-solving. Activities such as:

• Threading or lacing toys that engage fine motor skills.
• Shape sorters and coin banks that encourage sorting and posting in structured ways.
• Posting games with immediate retrieval mechanisms to reinforce object permanence and minimise lost items.

Offering consistent access to sensory activities, allows the child to channel their posting urges into constructive learning moments.

Environmental Modifications to Control Access

For a four-year-old who is highly motivated by sensory-seeking behaviour, temporarily sealing or blocking gaps can reduce the likelihood of losing items. Setting up designated “posting zones” can further limit impulsive posting, while marking “no posting” areas visually can reinforce boundaries.

Several removable solutions can effectively block gaps without causing damage: pool noodles or foam pipe insulation can be split lengthwise and slid between furniture and walls, whilst clear plastic corner protectors or desk edge guards offer a more discreet option. For fence gaps, mesh panels or garden netting can be secured with zip-ties, and furniture gaps can be blocked using foam corner blocks or contact paper-covered cardboard barriers. All these solutions are cost-effective, easily removable and can be quickly adapted to different spaces, with self-adhesive varieties available for a more professional finish.

In conjunction with redirecting behaviours, these modifications prevent “posting sprees” in undesirable areas, and help the child identify where posting is appropriate.

Supporting Communication Development through Structured Play

Posting behaviours also offer a valuable opportunity to support language and communication skills, even in non-verbal children. Use posting activities to introduce simple vocabulary and symbols that encourage the development of communication skills.

To support communication:

• Introduce visual schedules to designate when posting activities are available.
• Use signs or symbols like “finished” and “more” during posting activities, helping the child understand when it’s time to move to a new activity.
• Incorporate cause-and-effect vocabulary to reinforce understanding of actions and outcomes.

Even non-verbal children can begin to understand the concepts of “in,” “out,” “more,” and “finished” over time, reinforcing both communication skills and behaviour boundaries.

Long-Term Solutions: Teaching Posting Alternatives and Meeting Developmental Needs

Building on these strategies, a long-term approach should aim to teach alternative behaviours that fulfil the same sensory and developmental needs. We can build strategies around structured play opportunities that are aligned with the Trajectory and Containing schemas. Find out more about Play Shemas here.

Provide Developmentally Appropriate Alternatives: Offering materials and structured activities allows children to explore cause-and-effect relationships and spatial awareness without compromising the classroom’s order.

Channel Behaviors into Learning Opportunities: Schema-based activities provide natural, constructive avenues for children to explore, fulfilling sensory needs and enhancing cognitive skills.

Facilitate Safe, Structured Sensory Play: Reinforcing communication and cognitive development through structured sensory activities enables children to practice essential skills in a safe environment.

Understanding Schema Play for Posting Behaviour in ASD

Trajectory Schema

This schema is often displayed when children experiment with moving objects along pathways. It reflects an exploration of spatial awareness, directionality, and object movement. For children with ASD, repetitive, predictable motions like posting may also provide comforting sensory input, helping to make sense of their surroundings in structured ways.

• Posting objects engages vertical or horizontal movements, allowing the child to explore how objects travel along paths or disappear into containers.
• Learning through Trajectory: Children begin to develop concepts of directionality and spatial relationships (e.g., understanding cause and effect, such as when they post an item and it reappears in a tray).

Suggested Trajectory Activities to Support Development:

1. Ball Runs: Use marble runs or ball tracks with ramps to let children drop balls from different heights, providing a satisfying, controlled trajectory.
2. Water Play with Pouring: Encourage pouring water from various containers into narrow tubes or slots, which gives a controlled, fluid trajectory.
3. Angled Posting Tubes: Set up tubes at different angles so children can observe how items travel in varying directions and speeds.
4. Target Games: Have small balls or bean bags that children can toss into labelled buckets or hula hoops to practise aim and hand-eye coordination.
5. Marble Runs: Build marble runs where children can experiment with marble trajectories and anticipate outcomes.

Containing/Enveloping Schema

This schema is about exploring boundaries, spatial relationships, and inside/outside concepts. Children who engage in containing behaviours enjoy putting items into gaps, covering things, or even wrapping objects. Posting into gaps meets the need to control boundaries and spatial relationships in a concrete, sensory way.

• Learning through Containment: Children gain an understanding of object permanence (knowing items continue to exist even when hidden), spatial boundaries, and the concept of containment.
• Sensory Satisfaction: Containing objects can bring sensory satisfaction as it allows the child to observe and predict object locations.

Suggested Containing Activities to Support Development:

1. Sorting Boxes with Different Compartments: Provide boxes with sections where children can organise items by shape, size, or colour, fulfilling the urge to organise and contain.
2. Posting Boxes with Varied Shaped Holes: Introduce posting boxes with various hole shapes to provide more challenge in matching shapes while fulfilling the containing urge.
3. Treasure Baskets with Containers: Offer small containers and interesting items, encouraging the child to fill and empty containers repeatedly.
4. Hide and Seek with Objects in Safe Containers: Place small toys inside child-safe, transparent containers that children can open and close, helping them develop containment concepts and object permanence.
5. Nested Containers: Offer a set of stacking or nesting containers, allowing children to explore how items fit within one another, reinforcing “inside/outside” concepts.

How Schema-Based Activities Support Development:

By identifying and addressing the trajectory and containing schemas, we can:

• Provide Safe, Engaging Alternatives: Offering appropriate materials channels sensory needs constructively, reducing unwanted behaviours.
• Encourage Exploration and Understanding: These activities build foundational concepts in spatial awareness and problem-solving through natural play.
• Support Developmental Growth: These structured play opportunities align with children’s developmental stages, helping them safely explore and practise new skills.
• Facilitate Cause-and-Effect Learning: These activities emphasise predictable results, helping children with ASD understand object manipulation and predict outcomes.

Even the quirkiest behaviours—like posting every small object in sight—are often windows into fascinating developmental needs. By understanding the sensory and spatial exploration behind posting, we can turn frustration into fun with tailored activities that engage, educate, and entertain! So, rather than endlessly fishing out puzzle pieces from behind furniture, we can celebrate this phase by providing playful, purposeful outlets for our little “postmasters.” With the right mix of structure, creativity, and patience, we’ll keep their curiosity thriving and our classroom supplies right where they belong!