During summer we had an ABA session that went well for the first couple of hours, but then he was clearly agitated. He started hitting scratching the therapist and scratching himself. She thought maybe he was mad because the lego Jurassic truck was broken up, and she told him they can put it back together, but he was not having it. She finally got him settled, but I could tell when I got home that day he was still in a mood. So I told him to go lay on by bed and I would put a cold towel on him so he could calm down. Once he was calm I said, "OK you need to come and pick up the stuff off your floor in the room and put them away", he had knocked off all his dinos from his shelves and that's when I saw it.... the Jurassic legos got put in the bin during clean up time and 'Milo didn't handle it well. He saw the bin and said, "I just want to smash the box" I said why (of course knowing why, but I wanted him to use his words to tell me), he said "because those don't go in there. They should to go there", pointing to his book shelf. I said, "OK so this is when we need to be flexible. It's OK they are in the bin. But if you don't want them there, you don't need to smash anything, you just need to say what's bothering you. This way people know what you want. They don't know when you are throwing things or hitting them. That's not how you should communicate, you need to use words. Finish putting the dinos up on your shelf and they you can put these legos where you want them." Once he finished cleaning up, he put his Jurassic legos where they "belong". Then he was happy. Completely happy.
I'm sure it was completely unintentional by the therapist, otherwise she would have known why he was upset. I'm sure she didn't know they didn't "belong" in the bin and was just putting the legos back where all the other legos go.  
‪#‎autism‬ ‪#‎flexibility‬ ‪#‎ABA‬ ‪#‎CARD‬ Center for Autism and Related Disorders