A controlled demonstration of the effectiveness of electric shock in the elimination of chronic infant rumination.
Electric shock wiped out infant rumination in days, but current standards call it unethical, so use the data to justify strong, safe alternatives instead.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Doctors used a mild electric shock to stop a baby from ruminating. The baby was six months old and kept bringing up milk on purpose. The team turned the shock on and off three times to prove it was really working.
Each time the baby started to ruminate, a small shock hit the leg for one second. The shock was just strong enough to make the baby jump a little.
What they found
Rumination dropped from over 100 times a day to only once in three days. When the shock stopped, the vomiting came right back. When shock returned, the vomiting stopped again and stayed gone for nine months.
The baby also gained weight and grew normally after the treatment ended.
How this fits with other research
Fisher et al. (2023) now says electric skin shock is unethical and unnecessary. They looked at the same kind of shock and said safer tools work just as well. The clash is sharp: one paper calls it life-saving; the other calls it harmful.
Garcia et al. (1971) used the same shock tactic four years earlier on teens who hit themselves. Both studies got fast stop-behavior results and used the on-off design to prove control. The pattern shows shock can work, but the field has moved away from it.
Tassé et al. (2013) reviewed ways to cut restraint and aversive use in disability services. Their data support moving toward gentler plans, backing up Fisher’s warning.
Why it matters
You now know that shock can produce a quick, large drop in life-threatening behavior, but today’s ethics and policy reject it. If you face severe rumination, use that fact to argue for intensive, humane alternatives like thickened feeds, close schedule feeding, and skill-building. Document why milder steps failed so the team and payers approve more resources without reaching for shock.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
An aversive therapy program was used to eliminate chronic ruminative vomiting in a nine‐month‐old infant, hospitalized with severe weight loss, malnutrition, and secondary medical complications judged potentially fatal by the pediatric staff. A trial of thickened feedings and continuous maternal attention conducted on the pediatric ward before this intervention proved ineffective. In contrast to previous uncontrolled case reports, the present study included an extended pretreatment baseline and a treatment reversal, in which potentially relevant variables such as ward routines, observers, and apparatus remained constant. During treatment, a series of 0.5‐sec shocks were delivered at 0.5‐sec intervals when a ruminating sequence was observed and then terminated when it ceased. Shock intensity was set at a level that resulted in a startle response and produced fussing but failed to elicit crying. Treatment location and the individuals present were systematically varied to facilitate generalization. Ruminating dropped from a five‐day baseline mean of 114 to a single instance on treatment Day 3. During the three‐day treatment reversal, in which the shock source was disconnected, ruminating increased from four instances on the first day to 10 by the third day. Because of clinical considerations, however, shock was re‐introduced before ruminating reached pretreatment baseline levels. Reductions in ruminating were accompanied by significant weight gains, a decrease in crying, and an increase in interactions with staff and parents. The infant was discharged on the tenth day of the second treatment period. Followup evaluations conducted nine months after discharge showed that, despite several instances in the immediate two‐week posttreatment period, rumination no longer occurred and developmental progress was within normal limits. This article presents detailed procedural descriptions, discusses the problem of determining when to terminate treatment, considers nutritional management, and compares the relative effectiveness of an alternative aversive stimulus, concentrated lemon juice.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1977 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1977.10-500