Collateral effects of response blocking during the treatment of stereotypic behavior.

The team used response blocking to stop stereotypic hand movements in children with autism. While they blocked the movements they also gave the kids toys and later added extra prompts to play.

They watched what happened to toy play and to any new stereotypy that popped up.

Blocking cut the target stereotypy but toy play dropped at the same time. A second, different stereotypy also rose.

Extra prompts helped a little but did not fully fix the losses in play or the new stereotypy.

McLaughlin et al. (1972) saw the same pattern decades earlier: when extinction removed loud talking, kids also lost peer play and gained new disruptions. The echo shows this is a core risk of any extinction plan, not a one-off.

Rapport et al. (1996) looked almost identical—brief response interruption plus toys cut hand mouthing and the toys stayed fun. The key difference is they paired the interruption with steady reinforcement for toy use, so play was strengthened instead of punished.

Martin (1995) adds a warning from a meta view: younger children and certain topographies respond faster, so side effects can snowball quickly in early learners. Together the papers say blocking works, but unless you actively build reinforcement for the toys you will accidentally punish them.

If you block stereotypy without first loading the alternative with strong reinforcers, you can lose valuable play skills and see new stereotypy bloom. Run a quick probe of toy interaction before, during, and after blocking. If play drops, pause the block and add denser reinforcement for touching or manipulating the items, then re-introduce the block.