Aggression, tantrums, and self-injury can function as escape behaviors, allowing children to terminate aversive demand (teaching) situations. In one group of six psychotic children, these behaviors were frequent in demand situations, and rare in nondemand situations. Further, when stimuli correlated with the termination of demands were presented, problematic behaviors decreased dramatically. These problems were treated in two ways--by an escape-extinction procedure in which the child was prohibited from leaving the demand situation as long as disruptive behavior was occurring, and the introduction of strongly preferred reinforcers to attenuate the aversiveness of the demand situation thereby reducing the motivation to emit escape responses. Such an approach was successful in eliminating the aggressive and self-injurious behaviors of two children and the tantrum behavior of two others. (Author/PJC)