Running to Be Heard: Reclaiming Elopement as Autistic Navigation and Agency

Dr. Scott Frasard is an autistic autism advocate who is a published author and an outspoken critic of operant conditioning approaches to change natural autistic behaviors to meet neuronormative social expectations.

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Disclaimer: I am not a parent or have been a caregiver to children. Though I do not have lived experience in the area of elopement, I have listened to many who have and have read enough on the subject to at least raise questions and concerns about how elopement is framed, especially in the ABA context.

Introduction

Elopement is an often misunderstood and pathologized behavior associated with autistic children, particularly within the framework of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). Often defined as "unauthorized leaving" or "wandering," elopement is treated as a deviation from expected conduct, a behavior to be tracked, corrected, and extinguished. It is described in data sheets and behavioral plans, surrounded by language that frames it as dangerous, irrational, or oppositional. This framing reflects a deeper assumption: that autistic movement must be managed rather than interpreted, and that staying put is inherently more valuable than seeking regulation or expressing need through motion. In many cases, the response to elopement centers not on what prompted the child to leave, but on how to ensure they do not do it again. As a result, the meaning behind the movement is lost in a rush to restore order, rather than to foster understanding.

But what if the act of leaving is not a disruption, but a communication? What if it is not a behavioral breakdown, but a purposeful act of navigation in response to an intolerable or misaligned environment? What if, instead of assuming dysfunction, we recognized that elopement often reflects an immediate, embodied truth about how the child is experiencing their surroundings? This article proposes that elopement is not inherently problematic. Rather, it is often a sign of agency, of autonomy expressed through motion when other forms of communication fail, are ignored, or are unavailable. It is a form of boundary-setting and a response to environments that demand endurance rather than offer support.

This article challenges the dominant framing of elopement as pathology. Drawing on neurodiversity-affirming principles and justice-centered critique, it invites readers to rethink elopement as a form of communication, resistance, and sensory or emotional navigation. It examines the assumptions embedded in behaviorist models, the silencing of autistic voices, and the need to reframe safety through the lens of consent and relational trust. When a child runs away from their parent, walks out of a room, a therapy session, or a classroom, the dominant question is, “How do we make them stay?” What if we reframed that question to ask, “What is this child trying to tell us by leaving?”

Ultimately, the goal is not to interpret elopement as disorder, but to understand it as signal. A signal that deserves not punishment, but listening. Not suppression, but inquiry. And not control, but compassion.

The Behavioral Framing of Elopement

Applied Behavior Analysis defines elopement as a maladaptive behavior, typically "involves leaving a designated area without permission and is common among individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities" (Boyle & Adamson, 2017, p. 375). This definition is grounded in the assumption that such departures are inherently problematic, regardless of context or cause. The response protocol emphasizes data collection, functional behavior assessments, and reinforcement systems designed to decrease its frequency. Practitioners document each incident, analyze its so-called function, and implement strategies intended to reduce occurrences over time. These procedures rely on observable metrics such as frequency and duration, which prioritize surface-level behavior over internal experience. Within structured environments like schools and therapy centers, this system is designed to maintain predictability, control, and an appearance of safety for the child, staff, and institutions, often without addressing the underlying reasons a child may feel compelled to leave.

Beneath these procedural layers lies a central assumption: remaining in a designated space is inherently desirable, while leaving that space represents a failure in regulation or cooperation. This presumption often goes unexamined, even though it shapes entire behavior plans and institutional responses. Environments are constructed with the expectation of containment, not with curiosity about whether those environments meet the child's needs. Why is the default expectation that a child should want to remain in the environment provided? Who defines what is safe, and who decides which movements are acceptable? These decisions are rarely collaborative, and often reflect adult priorities rather than a holistic understanding of the child's experience. In failing to question these defaults, systems reinforce power imbalances and overlook the possibility that leaving may be the most reasonable choice available to the child.

ABA's approach prioritizes external behavioral compliance over internal emotional or sensory regulation. This focus on observable behavior aligns with its philosophical roots in behaviorism, which emphasize what can be seen and measured rather than what is felt or experienced. As a result, the deeper motivations behind elopement behaviors are often rendered invisible or dismissed as irrelevant. Instead of asking what emotional, relational, or sensory disruptions may be prompting the behavior, practitioners are taught to identify a functional cause and intervene accordingly. The training reinforces a model where compliance is the primary goal, even when it comes at the cost of understanding the child's distress or unmet needs.

This reductionist view disregards the possibility that elopement might be a valid, even necessary, response to the environment. It positions the child's behavior as the problem, without interrogating the conditions that provoke such a response. In doing so, it places the burden of adaptation solely on the child, absolving the setting and its demands from scrutiny or accountability. If a child repeatedly leaves a space, the ethical question should not only be how to make them stay, but what the environment is failing to offer in terms of safety, dignity, and mutual respect. Until systems are willing to ask what about the space might be intolerable or inaccessible, they will continue to misidentify the symptom while missing the root cause.

By viewing elopement as something to be extinguished, ABA practices risk dehumanizing the child. The act of leaving is reduced to a statistical anomaly, a deviation to be tracked and eliminated, rather than honored as a potential moment of embodied truth. When a child's movement is interpreted only through the lens of disruption, the opportunity to understand the deeper emotional or sensory motivations behind that movement is lost. Without engaging the meaning behind the motion, these practices reinforce a system that silences dissent, pathologizes autonomy, and fails to recognize that behavior is often the most accessible form of communication for those whose voices are overlooked or unsupported.

Positionality and the Erasure of Lived Experience

In assessments of elopement, the voice of the autistic child is largely absent. Professionals interpret the behavior; parents explain the triggers; technicians implement strategies. Each role is defined by observation and intervention, but rarely by listening. The person whose body moves, whose feet run, whose legs carry them toward or away from something, is rarely asked what that movement means or how it felt. This omission is not accidental; it reflects systemic norms in which authority and interpretation belong to adults, while autistic children are treated as subjects to be managed. It is a reflection of whose perspectives are prioritized, whose discomfort is centered, and whose needs are dismissed in the process.

The authoritative stance of adults, particularly those trained in behaviorist modalities, tends to cast autistic behavior through a deficit lens that centers adult expectations over child experience. Within this framework, the act of leaving is not treated as meaningful communication or an attempt to assert autonomy, but rather as a behavioral disruption that must be corrected. The autistic child's lived experience is not examined for what it reveals about discomfort, disconnection, or sensory distress. Instead, it is filtered through interpretive frameworks that prioritize control and compliance. This dynamic reveals a troubling imbalance of power in which neurotypical interpretations are privileged and institutional goals are preserved, often at the expense of recognizing and respecting neurodivergent realities.

These adult-centric interpretations are not neutral. They are shaped by non-autistic norms and constrained by systemic priorities such as safety, order, and risk management. These priorities often reflect institutional needs rather than the well-being of the individual child. As a result, the nuanced emotional, sensory, or psychological drivers of elopement are rarely investigated with depth or curiosity. Instead of asking what conditions may have made staying unbearable, systems focus on identifying triggers and enforcing behavioral controls. Movement is labeled and managed, recorded as data rather than acknowledged as communication. The system does not inquire; it regulates, often in ways that reinforce compliance without understanding.

This regulation often occurs without relational reciprocity. Children are subjected to decisions about their bodies, safety plans, and educational or therapeutic goals without their knowledge, input, or consent. They are rarely given the opportunity to explain their actions or to reflect on how environments affect them. Their acts of dissent, embodied in motion and often grounded in a deep need for relief or autonomy, are instead framed as threats to order or compliance. These interpretations ignore the child's context and emotional state, reducing complex acts of self-advocacy into problems to be solved. When children are not invited to co-construct meaning, they are positioned as passive objects within intervention models, rather than active subjects of their own experience, deserving of agency and respect.

Ultimately, when the voices of those who elope are missing, systems default to a framework of control. This silencing is not only harmful; it is epistemically unjust, as it denies individuals the right to define and communicate their own experiences. Institutional narratives dominate, often portraying elopement as impulsivity or disobedience rather than acknowledging the child's perspective. In privileging control over comprehension, these systems protect institutional comfort at the expense of individual truth. The behavior is stripped of its context and meaning, leaving behind only data points and disciplinary plans. In doing so, systems erase the rich, complex significance embedded in the behavior itself, and foreclose the possibility of responsive, compassionate care.

Reconsidering the Functions of Elopement

Elopement can signal many things, and each instance should prompt reflection rather than automatic correction. These actions are not random; they are often precise and purposeful, even when they are difficult for adults to interpret. The choice to leave a space can carry layers of meaning shaped by context, history, and the child’s relationship with the environment. It may reflect a decision rooted in intuition, discomfort, boundary-setting, or self-advocacy. Recognizing this complexity requires adults to resist the urge to interpret through assumptions and instead approach the behavior with curiosity and a commitment to understanding what matters to the child in that moment.

One common cause is sensory overwhelm. For an autistic child, environments that others consider neutral may be saturated with unbearable sensory input. A room filled with fluorescent lighting, unpredictable noises, or uncomfortable clothing textures may trigger a nervous system response that makes flight the only tolerable option. These are not minor irritations, but full-bodied intrusions that overwhelm the capacity to cope. What might be a subtle hum to one person could feel like a piercing shriek to another. In such situations, movement away from the source is not behavioral defiance; it is a self-protective regulation strategy rooted in an urgent need to preserve wellbeing and regain a sense of control.

Trauma and emotional dysregulation also play significant roles. For children with histories of restraint, coercion, or invalidation, certain environments can activate the body’s defense mechanisms in ways that are immediate and overwhelming. A sound, a gesture, or even the tone of a voice can become a trigger, recalling past harm and prompting the nervous system to respond as though danger is imminent. Elopement in this context is not about attention-seeking or manipulation. It is a neurological and psychological response to perceived threat, developed through lived experience and shaped by a child's attempts to survive in spaces that have often ignored or punished their distress. Recognizing this, elopement should be seen not as defiance but as a deeply embodied message that safety, trust, or consent has been compromised.

Another driver of elopement is communicative distress. When verbal or augmentative communication is inaccessible, unavailable, or ineffective, the body becomes the primary medium of expression. In these moments, the act of leaving can speak volumes. Walking away may be a way of saying “I need space,” “This is too much,” or “I cannot manage this right now.” These bodily cues are often the clearest expression of need a child can offer when other forms of expression are limited or fail to elicit understanding. These movements are not escapes from engagement, but invitations to respond differently, to approach with attunement rather than authority. Recognizing these signals as valid communication is essential for building trust and for fostering environments where the child does not need to leave in order to be understood.

Elopement can also represent navigational agency. A child may be moving toward something that provides regulation, relief, or a sense of connection. This could be a preferred object that brings comfort, a quieter space that helps reduce sensory input, or a familiar person who offers co-regulation and safety. In some cases, the child may be instinctively following a path that allows them to recalibrate or exercise choice in a context where few options are otherwise available. This dimension of seeking is too often overlooked in behavior plans that are oriented around avoidance, control, and risk management, rather than exploration, motivation, and emotional clarity. Recognizing the purposeful nature of this movement invites practitioners to rethink their assumptions about agency and need.

To view elopement solely as escape is to miss its complexity. It is not a flaw to be extinguished, but a message to be understood, interpreted, and valued. Each instance of elopement can reveal something crucial about the child’s relationship to their environment, including where their comfort lies, how they navigate distress, and what conditions enable or inhibit their sense of safety. These moments are not just behavioral episodes but relational opportunities. They call for adult presence that is grounded in empathy and inquiry, not authority. We are ethically obligated not to ignore these messages, but to listen and respond with humility, openness, and care that honors the child’s lived reality.

Consent, Safety, and the Right to Exit

Acknowledging the communication behind elopement does not mean ignoring the genuine need for physical safety. There are circumstances in which a child may elope into environments that pose serious risk, such as running into traffic, bodies of water, or unfamiliar and unsafe areas. These moments are terrifying for caregivers, and the impulse to prevent harm is both understandable and valid. But even in these cases, our response must not be to default to restriction or punishment. Instead, we need to ask what conditions contributed to the child’s distress or flight, and how we can proactively design environments and relationships that reduce the likelihood of such danger. Preventing harm is not at odds with honoring autonomy. It requires us to think creatively about supportive, relational strategies that prioritize both safety and dignity, and to ensure that protective measures are not confused with coercive control. True safety planning involves collaboration, trust-building, and the recognition that understanding the reason for elopement is itself a crucial step in preventing future harm.

Imagine being in a room that makes you want to scream. You signal distress in the only ways you know how, but no one listens or responds. You try to endure, reminding yourself of expectations and consequences, but the discomfort builds until it is no longer bearable. Eventually, you walk out, seeking relief, clarity, or simply space to breathe. Now imagine being punished for that act of self-preservation, not because it harmed anyone, but because it disrupted a system more invested in control than in care.

Adults do this all the time. We leave meetings, exit conversations, walk away from overstimulating places when our boundaries are breached or our nervous systems overwhelmed. These actions are often seen as reasonable expressions of need or self-care. But children, especially autistic children, are rarely granted that same right. Their exits are frequently framed as behavioral failures, signs of noncompliance, or deliberate defiance. Instead of being recognized as attempts to assert agency or seek regulation, these movements are pathologized, interpreted through the lens of manipulation or opposition, and responded to with control rather than compassion.

This misinterpretation reveals a deeper cultural belief: that adult-defined structure must be preserved at all costs, even when it contradicts the needs or signals of the child. The child’s withdrawal is treated as a rupture in order, a disturbance in the flow of the day, rather than a meaningful response to unmet need. In institutional contexts where routines are tightly managed and deviations are met with alarm, physical presence is often equated with cooperation and control. When institutions view physical presence as compliance and compliance as safety, the right to leave becomes not just discouraged but systematically denied, framed as a problem to fix instead of a perspective to understand.

At the heart of this is a tension between protection and consent. Yes, children deserve care, boundaries, and supervision. These elements are essential for development and safety. But protection should not come at the cost of autonomy. When we force children to stay without seeking to understand why they want to leave, we communicate that their voices do not matter and that their agency is secondary to adult authority. This practice not only undermines trust but also teaches children that their instincts are untrustworthy. It creates environments where bodily autonomy is conditional, contingent on adult comfort, and often sacrificed for the illusion of control and order. In such spaces, children may comply not because they feel safe, but because they feel powerless.

Moreover, the very concept of “safety” must be interrogated. Safety is often defined in physical terms by adults, focusing on containment, surveillance, and the absence of immediate physical harm. Yet emotional and sensory safety are equally vital, especially for autistic children whose needs may not align with the expectations of a rigid environment. An environment may appear secure on the surface, but if it is emotionally dismissive, overstimulating, or coercively structured, it undermines a child’s wellbeing. If a child is immobilized in an environment that overwhelms or traumatizes them, then that environment is not safe, regardless of locked doors or supervision ratios. True safety must encompass both external protections and internal peace.

When elopement is punished without exploration, we send a message: that the child’s internal compass cannot be trusted and that their attempts to self-regulate are cause for reprimand. This erodes confidence and disrupts the development of self-advocacy. Instead of cultivating self-awareness and autonomy, we reinforce compliance at the expense of connection. Children learn that survival strategies will be met with control, not compassion. But long-term resilience is not built through forced endurance. It is built when children are taught that their signals matter, that their needs are valid, and that it is safe to say no, to walk away, and to trust their own experience. It is built in relationships that honor those signals as worthy of attention rather than threats to authority.

Toward Interpretive, Justice-Centered Practice

What would it look like to treat elopement not as a problem, but as a form of communication? What if, rather than seeing a departure as a failure of compliance, we recognized it as an embodied expression of unmet need, sensory overwhelm, or emotional navigation? What if we asked, every time a child leaves: What are they telling us, and what do we need to change in ourselves, our spaces, or our systems to truly hear them?

This question demands a fundamental shift in how we perceive behavior. Rather than starting from a place of control or correction, we begin with curiosity, presence, and relational attunement. Elopement, then, becomes not an anomaly to suppress but an expression to interpret, one that may reveal more about the environment than about the child. Recognizing this opens the door to relationship-based practices rooted in trust, mutual understanding, and a commitment to seeing behavior as meaningful rather than deviant. It asks us to build cultures of responsiveness where the question is not how to stop the behavior, but how to support the child.

To support this shift, we must interrogate the systems and norms that define certain behaviors as disruptive. These definitions are often grounded in neurotypical expectations that prioritize stillness, verbal communication, and hierarchical compliance as markers of cooperation or success. These values are embedded not only in behavior plans, but in school routines, therapy models, and institutional policies that reward conformity over authenticity. In doing so, they marginalize embodied expressions of autonomy that do not conform to these expectations, especially those communicated through movement, sensory self-regulation, or boundary-setting. This marginalization is not accidental; it reflects broader societal discomfort with difference and a persistent belief that control is preferable to relational understanding.

Co-regulation is central to justice-centered practice. It asks adults to attune to the emotional and sensory states of children, not simply react to external behaviors. This attunement requires presence, patience, and a willingness to see distress not as disruption but as vulnerability in need of connection. Instead of implementing pre-determined behavioral scripts, co-regulation invites dynamic, moment-to-moment responses that validate the child's needs, foster mutual regulation, and preserve their dignity. It shifts the adult's role from that of an enforcer to that of a partner in emotional safety.

Environmental design also plays a key role. Spaces should be created with the assumption that all bodies, minds, and nervous systems deserve support, and that safety cannot be achieved without dignity. This includes not only physical layout, but also the emotional tone and sensory accessibility of the environment. Quiet zones, sensory retreats, visual supports, and flexible routines are not luxuries or accommodations reserved for crisis—they are baseline elements of inclusive design. Such environments signal that the needs of all children are anticipated and respected. They not only reduce the need for elopement but affirm the child's right to agency, regulation, and self-direction within a context of trust and support.

Safety, after all, must be reframed. It is not just about preventing harm, but about cultivating belonging, connection, and trust. It is emotional, sensory, relational, and cultural, and must be responsive to the lived realities of each child. A space that ignores distress, invalidates communication, or demands endurance over expression cannot truly be called safe. A child who is forced to remain in such a space, despite signals of overwhelm, fear, or disconnection, is not safe, no matter how well-contained the setting appears. A child who can leave, return, and feel heard is far closer to true safety, because their agency is respected, their signals are honored, and their presence is chosen rather than compelled.

In this light, every instance of elopement becomes a diagnostic opportunity, not for identifying deficits within the child, but for evaluating the environment’s capacity to support, include, and honor their full humanity. It invites a shift in responsibility, from modifying the child to examining the relational, sensory, and structural conditions that surround them. If elopement is a signal, then its presence should provoke reflection about what the child needed in that moment, and whether the setting was prepared to respond with dignity, flexibility, and care.

Conclusion

Elopement in and of itself is not a problem to be solved. It is a signal, a language, and a boundary drawn by the child when no one else is paying attention. It tells us something urgent about the spaces we create and the values we uphold. To truly understand elopement, we must be willing to confront the systems that have pathologized motion, dismissed distress, and silenced autonomy. We must recognize that movement is not a deviation from learning, relationship, or safety, but sometimes the clearest way a child can reclaim their voice. Each act of elopement is a story, not just of a child's response to an overwhelming or inaccessible moment, but of a world that has failed to ask different questions, failed to listen with care, and failed to build environments where staying feels possible. It is a call to reimagine not only our responses, but our entire way of seeing.

This article has argued that elopement, far from being deviant or dangerous by default, is often a vital act of self-preservation or agency rooted in lived experience. Whether prompted by sensory overload, trauma, communicative breakdown, or purposeful movement toward regulation, elopement reveals the deep disconnect between autistic needs and institutional norms. It exposes the ways in which standardized systems often fail to create environments that are flexible, responsive, or safe. When we frame elopement as pathology, we not only misinterpret a child's call for safety or autonomy, we also close the door on the possibility of understanding. In doing so, we miss an invitation to create more compassionate, adaptive, and humanizing relationships, systems, and spaces.

If we want children to stay, we must first ask why they want to leave and be prepared to truly listen. We must explore not only what the child is trying to communicate, but also what in the environment may be prompting their need to go. If we want them to trust us, we must consistently show that their signals matter, even when they are inconvenient or difficult to interpret. Trust is not built through compliance, but through relationships where the child feels seen, heard, and safe. And if we want to build a world that honors neurodivergent lives, we must start by recognizing that movement is not misbehavior. It is information, and often the most accessible form of truth that a child can offer when language, expectation, or setting fails them.

Let this be a call to educators, therapists, caregivers, and system designers: shift your gaze and reorient your priorities. Stop measuring success by compliance and start cultivating connection grounded in empathy and mutual respect. Design spaces where autonomy is not feared, but celebrated as a vital aspect of growth and trust. Create environments that anticipate difference and are prepared to respond with flexibility and care. Listen not just for words, but for footsteps that drift toward the door, for exits that speak volumes, and for pauses that say, "This is too much," even when no one else is listening. The child who leaves is not trying to escape you, they are asking whether you will choose to see and hear them.

A just world does not begin with locked doors and behavior charts. It begins with the courage to ask different questions, to question our own assumptions about control and compliance, and to dismantle practices that pathologize distress. It begins with the humility to listen without judgment to what movement might be telling us, even when that message disrupts our routines or challenges our authority. And it requires the determination to build systems where elopement is not feared, but understood as a critical invitation to reflect, adapt, and reconnect with the children we are meant to support.

When a child runs, the most urgent question is not, “How do we stop them?” The more important question is, “What are we willing to change so they no longer need to?”

Reference

Boyle, M. A., Dhar, A., & Broster, S. (2017). Systematic review of functional analysis and treatment of elopement (2000–2015). Behavior Analysis in Practice, 10(4), 375–385. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-017-0191-y

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