Habituation of premonitory sensations during exposure and response prevention treatment in Tourette's syndrome.

One boy with Tourette’s sat through ten two-hour sessions. He felt the pre-tic urge but was not allowed to tic.

Staff asked him every 15 minutes: “How strong is the urge now?” They counted his tics at the same time.

Urge scores dropped inside each session. They also dropped across the ten days. Fewer tics followed the lower urges.

The curve looked like classic habituation: big early spike, slow fade.

Aznar et al. (2005) and Carr et al. (2002) also cut problem behavior by giving kids free sensory input. They used fun items; J et al. used the raw urge itself. Same non-contingent idea, different tool.

Podlesnik et al. (2017) warn that changing the room or therapist can weaken extinction. J et al. kept the room and staff the same every session, so their habituation held steady.

Porter et al. (2008) taught a replacement response to early warning signs. J et al. skipped the replacement and just blocked the tic. Both worked, showing two roads from the same starting signal.

You can copy the 15-minute urge check in your next exposure session. One simple Likert question gives you a live habituation curve. When the curve flattens, you know the tics will follow down. No extra gear, just a timer and a sticky note.