Treating elopement without extinction in a preschool setting

Elopement is a prevalent and dangerous behavior that is common with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Due to safety, logistics, and effort on the part of stakeholders, recent research has emphasized the need for treatments that do not include extinction or response blocking. Using a multiple‐baseline‐across‐functions design, we successfully decreased elopement with functional communication training, without additional treatment components, for one function but needed to add an additional treatment component (response blocking) for the second function for a 4 year‐old boy with ASD who engaged in elopement in a preschool setting. We highlight contributions to the literature on elopement as well as directions for future research.