Development of social responses in two severely retarded children.

Two children with severe intellectual disability rarely played with others. The researchers sat them at a table. They taught the kids to roll a ball back and forth and to pass blocks to each other.

Each time the children took a turn, they got candy or praise. The team watched what happened when they later stopped the treats.

Turn-taking jumped as soon as the candy arrived. The kids also started talking and smiling more. When the treats stopped, the play dropped again.

The new skills carried over to other rooms and to new children, but only while the candy was still given somewhere.

Neuringer et al. (1968) did the same thing two years earlier with adults. They used prompts plus candy and got the same big gains. The adult greetings lasted three months after the candy thinned, but the child play in Schwarz et al. (1970) faded when candy stopped. The difference is age, not the principle.

Sasson et al. (2022) used video clips plus peer help instead of candy. Their students with autism and ID kept the new social play even after the videos ended. This 2022 package supersedes the 1970 candy method because it builds stronger maintenance.

Striefel et al. (1974) showed you can reward the peer instead of the withdrawn child and still win. That extends Schwarz et al. (1970) by giving teachers two targets to reinforce.

You can spark social play in minutes with any simple turn-taking game and a bag of candy. Just plan how to keep it going. Fade the candy slowly, or swap in video models and peer helpers so the fun does not stop when the treats do.