Further evaluation of treatment integrity for response interruption and redirection
RIRD still cuts vocal stereotypy even at 33% integrity, though full integrity works faster.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Gauthier et al. (2020) asked: does RIRD still work if staff do it only one-third of the time?
They worked with four autistic children who repeated sounds or words. Staff used RIRD at 100% or 33% integrity in an alternating-treatments design.
What they found
Both levels cut vocal stereotypy. Full integrity worked faster and kept stereotypy lower.
Even at 33% integrity, stereotypy still dropped, just more slowly.
How this fits with other research
Alaimo et al. (2015) saw the opposite pattern. In mand training, 40% integrity stopped learning entirely. The jobs differ: mand training needs every response caught, while RIRD can ride on other reinforcers already in the room.
Esposito et al. (2021) also lowered vocal stereotypy, but with red/green cards instead of RIRD. Both papers show you can attack the same behavior with very different tools.
Greenlee et al. (2024) tweaked how to present competing items and got medium drops. Gauthier tweaks how often to do RIRD and still gets medium drops. Both remind us small changes in delivery matter.
Why it matters
You can relax a little. If a busy classroom only allows RIRD one-third of the time, it still helps. Full integrity is better, but partial integrity beats no plan at all. Track stereotypy for a week; if it is still dropping, your low-dose RIRD is doing its job.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
AbstractA few studies on response blocking as well as response interruption and redirection (RIRD) as a treatment for automatically maintained problem behavior have examined different levels of treatment integrity. Results from these studies have shown continued suppression of responding under low levels of integrity for some participants after they were exposed to blocking at full integrity. The current study compared the treatment effects of RIRD at two levels of integrity (100 and 33%). The 33% condition was not preceded by exposure to full integrity. Four children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder between the ages of 8 and 16 participated. The effects of treatment integrity on vocal stereotypy were assessed using an ABAB‐variant design in which B consisted of an alternating‐treatments comparison of different levels of integrity. Results varied across participants, and although both conditions decreased stereotypy, 100% integrity produced lower levels of stereotypy quicker than 33%. The current study expands upon current literature by suggesting that lower levels of integrity (33%) may still suppress vocal stereotypy.
Behavioral Interventions, 2020 · doi:10.1002/bin.1738