Maintenance of therapeutic change by momentary DRO.

Nine students with intellectual disabilities were already doing well with whole-interval DRO.

The team switched them to momentary DRO. They wanted to know if the lighter schedule would keep problem behavior low.

Each child was checked the same way: no response during the last two seconds earned a token.

Problem behavior stayed low. Momentary DRO worked just as well as the stricter whole-interval version.

Kids kept earning tokens and teachers spent less time watching clocks.

Hedquist et al. (2020) seems to disagree. They showed DRA beat DRO for cutting stereotypy in kids with autism. The key difference: their DRO was never paired with response blocking and the kids had autism, not ID.

Ohan et al. (2015) push the idea further. They used DNRO to help a preschooler with autism wear a medical bracelet all day. Same reinforcement logic, new skill.

Nishimura et al. (1987) used a cousin method, DRL, to slow rapid eating in adults with ID. They also kept the design simple and saw long-term gains.

You can lighten your DRO load without losing control. After whole-interval DRO has knocked problem behavior down, switch to momentary checks. You still watch the final two seconds of each interval, then deliver the reinforcer. This keeps suppression while giving you more time to teach and monitor other goals. Try it during transitions or group work when full-interval timing is tough.