Assessment and treatment of destructive behavior maintained by stereotypic object manipulation.
Give clients a toy that feels like the item they destroy and block grabs at the real thing to erase both destruction and stereotypy.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Two adults with intellectual disability kept ripping and mouthing objects.
The team first watched to see what sensory feel the clients seemed to seek.
They then gave each client a toy that gave the same feel and blocked any reach for the real objects.
Sessions ran until the behavior stayed low or vanished.
What they found
Property destruction and stereotypy almost stopped for both clients.
The matched toy alone cut the behavior, but adding response blocking wiped it out.
Gains held when staff faded the blocking and used the toy in daily routines.
How this fits with other research
Hanley et al. (1997) tried noncontingent attention and toys a year earlier.
They showed that any steady stream of stimuli can shrink attention-maintained destruction, but W et al. prove the toy must match the sensory feel when the behavior runs on automatic reinforcement.
Chan et al. (2005) later ran a big room full of generic sensory gear and saw no drop in stereotypy.
The clash is simple: generic play does nothing; a toy that copies the exact feel plus blocking the wrong move does the trick.
Dawson et al. (2025) recently layered the same matched-toy plus blocking package with extra assessments and cut mechanical restraints for an adolescent, showing the idea still works decades later.
Why it matters
If your client shreds paper, flaps strings, or mouths clothing, first ask what sensory payoff the act gives.
Pick a safe item that gives the same feel and keep it in the client’s hands.
Block or gently redirect every reach for the real object.
You can start this Monday with one matched toy and a calm hand; no extra staff or fancy gear needed.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
In the current investigation, 2 participants with mental retardation displayed property destruction and stereotypy, and both responses involved the same materials (e.g., breaking and tapping plastic objects). Three experiments were conducted (a) to indirectly assess the functions of these two responses, (b) to determine their relation to one another, and (c) to develop a treatment to reduce the more serious behavior, property destruction. In Experiment 1, previously destroyed materials were either present or absent, and their presence reduced property destruction but not stereotypy. In Experiment 2, matched toys (ones that produced sensory stimulation similar to stereotypy) were either present or absent, or were replaced by unmatched toys (for 1 participant). Matched toys produced large reductions and unmatched toys produced small reductions in property destruction and stereotypy. In Experiment 3, attempts to pick up undestroyed objects were either blocked or not blocked while matched toys were continuously available. Response blocking reduced property destruction (and attempts), prevented stereotypy, and increased manipulation of matched toys. These results suggest that the two aberrant responses formed a chain (e.g., breaking and then tapping the object), which was maintained by the sensory consequences (e.g., auditory stimulation) of the terminal response, and that previously destroyed material or matched toys made the initial response (property destruction) unnecessary.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1998 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1998.31-513