Functional analysis and treatment of hair twirling in a young child.

A preschool child kept twirling her hair at bedtime. The parents ran a short functional analysis at home. They tested if the twirling happened for attention, escape, or just felt good on its own.

The FA pointed to automatic reinforcement. The team then tried bedtime mittens. The child wore them all night, every night, at home and at day care.

Hair twirling dropped to almost zero while the mittens were on. The change showed up right away and held for weeks.

Aldakhil (2026) later used school-based habit reversal with sensory toys for older autistic students. Both studies hit the same hair behavior and the same automatic payoff, so the mitten trick extends to classrooms when you add teaching and choice.

Koegel et al. (2014) ran a feeding FA with noncontingent toys on the table. For most kids the toys cut problem behavior, but for one child the rate rose. That mixed result warns us: always pilot mittens first and watch for an uptick.

Scalzo et al. (2015) pitted FCT against other ABA tricks for vocal stereotypy. FCT won big. If mittens ever fail, switch to a response-based plan like FCT or the habit-reversal package Fahad used.

You now have a zero-demand option for bedtime body-focused habits. No tokens, no teaching trials—just soft mittens. Try it first when the behavior is strong at night and parents need sleep. If it works, keep the mittens and fade fabric thickness. If it stalls, move to the school-friendly habit-reversal plan shown in Aldakhil (2026).