Functional analysis and treatment of self-injury in a captive olive baboon.

One zoo baboon kept biting its own arm until it bled. The vet team asked behavior analysts to help.

They ran a short functional analysis. Each day they gave the baboon five-minute test sessions. Sometimes people talked to the baboon, sometimes they ignored it, sometimes the animal was alone.

When people gave attention after every bite, the biting shot up. Attention was the fuel. The team then taught the baboon to hand over a plastic token for grapes instead of biting itself.

The biting almost stopped when the grapes came only for handing in the token. When the staff briefly returned to giving attention for bites, the biting came back, proving the link.

The simple swap—token for grapes, no attention for bites—kept the animal safe with no drugs or restraints.

Lovaas et al. (1969) first showed this effect in children. They turned self-biting on and off just by changing whether adults looked at the child after each bite. The baboon study repeats that exact pattern, stretching the finding across species.

Carr et al. (2002) later saw the same attention rule in an adult with Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, but they stopped at assessment. R et al. added the next step—functional communication training—proving the principle works even with hooves and fur.

Snyder et al. (2024) recently used the same DRA plan with a blind autistic student. They added tactile cues so the child could still ask for attention without vision. Together the four papers form one timeline: find the social payoff, then give a better way to get it.

If the same contingency change tamps down self-biting in kids, adults, and now baboons, you can be confident attention-maintained SIB is universal. Next time your functional analysis points to “adult attention,” skip the gadgets. Withhold the payoff, teach one clear request, and reinforce that request every time. The animal lab just gave you extra proof that the simple plan works.