The self injurious behavior of an autistic person is defined as any action of an autistic person which is initiated by him and consequently results in physical harm and injury to that person. It is most difficult and an exhausted behavior of a person with autism. It is like a challange as it is always very hard to keep an eye on the acts of autistic person as they tend to intervene mostly to harm themselves anytime.

It has been noted that a person may find themselves in self-injurious behavior such as hand biting, head banging, bruising, laceration, bleeding, bone fractures and breakages, eye gouging, hair pulling, skin picking, scratching or pinching or forcefull head shaking so that they could accomplish any sensory goal. It is because of over-stimulation or under-stimulation of a person and he gets involves in such activities to introduce stimuli and regulate their sensory system. There are many reasons why a person may engage in such an act which not only results in harming that individual but also an interminable challange for caregiver. It ranges from biochemical to the social environment.

It is pertinent to discuss here that the real challange comes when a person gets involved in under-stimulation. As now its easy to notice when a person is in over-stimulation. For example, if there is a crowded place or a lot of noise, it can cause sensory problem for autistic person. If you take them away from that place or low that noise, it will regulate his/her sensory system and they will get ok. But in under-stimulation situation, it gets very hard for a carer to notice as this behavior may come out of nowhere and throw the carer off guard.

Some research has been done in order to discover underlying cause of self-injurious behavior which suggests that the levels of certain neurotransmitter are connected with self-injurious behavior. Betaendrophins are endogenous opiate like fluid in the brain and self harm may intensify the production of these endrophins which results that a person with autism feels an anesthesia like effect and consequently he/she does not experience any pain if gets injured. Today, many medicines are prescribed for autistic behavior but most widely recommended medicine is Risperdone. Usuallly it is give to treat epilepsy, but recently it is also prescribed to autistic children.

In nutshell, it should take under consideration the social environment in which a person with autism lives. It is observed that the behavior may trigger in various environment and around different people. But self-injury may occur in an environment in which the autistic person's behavior is incompatible with self-injury like eating, playing and working on different interesting tasks.