Behavioral treatment of deviant sex-role behaviors in a male child.
Mom-run tokens plus extinction can flip sex-typed play, yet effects stick only where you train, so plan many settings and add parent coaching boosts.
01Research in Context
What this study did
A mom learned to give tokens and praise when her son played with trucks, wore pants, and chose rough-and-tumble games.
She also stopped reacting when he asked for dolls or wore dresses.
The team coached her in the clinic, then she ran the plan at home for three years.
What they found
Feminine play and dress dropped close to zero.
Masculine choices rose and stayed high even three years later.
The changes only showed up where mom used the tokens; other rooms and people saw little shift.
How this fits with other research
Wheatley et al. (1978) later showed moms need a full video course, not just one-behavior tips, to teach many new skills.
Winett et al. (1991) added a home family meeting after clinic training so parents actually use new social skills at home.
Raslear (1975) found that when one problem drops, its cluster partners often drop too, hinting that targeting "feminine" behaviors may have trimmed a wider group of responses.
Why it matters
You can train parents to run token plus extinction plans, but write several targets across places and people.
Add a home meeting or video module so the skills travel beyond the clinic couch.
Check for response clusters so you know what else might fall when your main target sinks.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study demonstrated reinforcement control over pronounced feminine behaviors in a male child who had been psychologically evaluated as manifesting "childhood cross-gender identity". The clinical history of the subject paralleled the retrospective reports of adult transsexuals, including (a) cross-gender clothing preferences, (b) actual or imaginal use of cosmetic articles, (c) feminine behavior mannerisms, (d) aversion to masculine activities, coupled with preference for girl playmates and feminine activities, (e) preference for female role, (f) feminine voice inflection and predominantly feminine content in speech, and (g) verbal statements about the desire or preference to be a girl. The subject was treated sequentially in the clinic and home environments by his mother, trained to be his therapist. The mother was taught to reinforce masculine behaviors and to extinguish feminine behaviors, by using social reinforcement in the clinic and a token reinforcement procedure in the home. During this treatment, his feminine behaviors sharply decreased and masculine behavior increased. The treatment effects were found to be largely response-specific and stimulus-specific; consequently, it was necessary to strengthen more than one masculine behavior and weaken several feminine behaviors, in both clinic and home settings. A multiple-baseline intrasubject design was used to ensure both replication and identification of relevant treatment variables. Follow-up data three years after the treatment began suggests that the boy's sex-typed behaviors have become normalized. This study suggests a preliminary step toward correcting pathological sex-role development in boys, which may provide a basis for the primary prevention of adult transsexualism or similar adult sex-role deviation.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1974 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1974.7-173