Altering the timing of academic prompts to treat destructive behavior maintained by escape.

Carr et al. (2003) worked with one child who had developmental delays.

The child hit, bit, and threw things to get out of schoolwork.

The team kept the same work on the desk.

They only changed when they gave the help prompt.

In baseline they gave the prompt after a wrong answer.

In treatment they gave the prompt right before the next trial.

They also mixed easy and hard problems together.

An ABAB reversal design proved the change worked.

Moving the prompt to before the trial dropped destructive behavior to zero.

Bringing back the old timing made the behavior return.

Putting the new timing back in wiped the behavior out again.

The child finished the same amount of work with no extra rewards.

Castañe et al. (1993) first showed that starting with zero demands and slowly adding them back cuts escape self-injury.

Carr et al. (2003) kept the full task load and still got zero problem behavior by shifting prompt timing.

Mueller et al. (2000) used response cost and got an meaningful improvement while escape stayed available.

Carr et al. (2003) matched that drop to zero without taking anything away from the child.

Slocum et al. (2025) later tested three treatments head-to-head and found instructional fading beats escape extinction early on.

Their larger trial supports the idea that tweaking how you present tasks, not just blocking escape, can win fast.

You can wipe out escape-maintained problem behavior tomorrow without cutting task difficulty or adding rewards.

Just give the corrective prompt before the next trial and mix in some easy problems.

This takes zero extra time and keeps learning trials rolling.

Try it during seatwork, tooth-brushing, or any repeated task where the child usually fights to get out.