Development of verbal control over bizarre gestures of retardates through imitative and nonimitative reinforcement procedures.

Two young people with intellectual disability kept making odd hand and body movements. The team wanted words alone to stop the motions.

First, the teacher showed the movement and gave food when the child copied it. Next, the teacher said, "Do not do this," showed the movement, and gave food only if the child kept still. Finally, food stopped and only the words stayed.

Both children learned the copy rule in minutes. The odd movements dropped to zero after the "do not" rule and fading began. Weeks later, the words alone still stopped the gestures, even with no food.

Neisworth et al. (1985) ran a similar start-then-stop plan with adults. They gave food for every self-stimulatory response, then cut the food. The behavior also fell fast, but only one adult kept the gain. Their short follow-up shows you may need booster sessions after you remove food.

Busch et al. (2010) looked like they disagreed at first. They let kids ask for short stereotypy breaks instead of wiping the behavior out. Both studies still move control to outside cues—one uses "do not," the other uses a request card—so the ideas line up, not clash.

Roberts et al. (1987) stretched the same prompting logic to play skills. After teaching adults with profound ID to stack blocks and roll balls, their odd movements also dropped and stayed low for a full year. The pattern shows prompt-and-fade beats stereotypy across very different responses.

You can copy the three-step plan in any quiet room: reinforce a simple opposite motion, reinforce stillness when you say "do not," then fade the food. The words alone will later stop the gesture, saving you from long extinction bursts. Pair the plan with monthly check-ins if you want the loss to last as long as N et al. saw.