Response interruption and DRL for the reduction of rapid eating.

Three adults with intellectual disability lived in a state facility. All ate meals in under 3 minutes.

Researchers used spaced-responding DRL. The rule: wait 15 seconds between bites. If the client ate too soon, staff blocked the bite and reset the timer.

Sessions ran at lunch and dinner. The team tracked eating time across three different dining rooms to test generalization.

DRL plus blocking dropped eating speed to the goal range for every adult.

Gains lasted up to 5 months. But each new dining room needed its own training. Without direct teaching, fast eating came back.

Williams et al. (1986) tried DRL alone a year earlier. Their clients kept eating fast. Nishimura et al. (1987) shows the missing piece: you must add prompting and response interruption.

Pubylski-Yanof et al. (2022) later used the same prompting logic to help an adult with autism try new foods. The method travels across feeding problems.

Hedquist et al. (2020) pitted DRA against DRO for stereotypy. Like Nishimura et al. (1987), they found that simple schedules fail without extra supports.

If you treat rapid eating, pair DRL with active prompting and brief response blocking. Train in every place the client eats. The combo works fast and lasts months.