Brief Experimental Evaluation of Nonremoval of the Cup to Increase Water Consumption

Silbaugh et al. (2020) ran a one-session test with a boy with autism who refused liquids. They kept his cup at his lips until he drank. The team added this nonremoval step to the NCR he already had.

They tracked how many sips he took. The goal was to see if the cup trick would boost water intake right away.

The boy drank more water when the cup stayed put. The brief test showed the add-on worked in minutes.

No one had to hold him or chase him. The cup simply waited at his mouth until he sipped.

Dougherty et al. (1996) and Firth et al. (2001) used the same idea with spoons. They held the spoon at the lips until the child ate. Both papers found the move raised bites to about 80%. Silbaugh swapped the spoon for a cup and got the same jump in drinks.

Shalev et al. (2018) took the cup trick further. After Silbaugh showed the cup works, they added a chin prompt or reclined seat to stop kids from spitting the drink out. The extra steps cut liquid expulsion without starting over.

Laugeson et al. (2014) faced a roadblock: a child who clamped his teeth so the cup could not stay. They slid a syringe past the teeth and then faded to the cup. This extends Silbaugh’s cup test to kids who block the utensil.

Kozlowski et al. (2024) picks up where Silbaugh stops. Once the brief cup test works, they fade from spoon to cup in slow steps. The pair forms a tidy sequence: test fast, then shape long term.

You can copy the 10-minute probe in your next feeding session. If the child already gets NCR for liquids, simply hold the cup in place and count sips. If drinks rise, keep the procedure and later add Shalev’s chin prompt or Kozlowski’s fading steps to fine-tune. One quick test tells you whether extinction with the cup is worth the time.