Social influences on "self-stimulatory" behavior: analysis and treatment application.
Teach kids to ask for help when work is hard and escape-driven stereotypy almost disappears.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Four children with developmental delay flapped and rocked whenever work got hard.
The team first showed the stereotypy only happened to escape tasks.
Then they taught each child to hand over a card that said "Help please."
They measured if the new request would replace the flapping and rocking.
What they found
As soon as the kids could ask for help, stereotypy dropped to almost zero.
The escape behavior stayed low while work continued with adult help.
Gains held after the trainers faded their prompts and left the room.
How this fits with other research
Carr et al. (1985) showed the first FCT study two years earlier. They cut aggression by teaching kids to ask for attention or help. Rutter et al. (1987) used the same idea but aimed it only at escape-maintained stereotypy.
Staats et al. (2000) later proved stereotypy can serve many functions, not just escape. Their data say you must match the new request to the real reinforcer or the stereotypy will stay.
Cohen et al. (1990) took the next step. After FCT lowered stereotypy, they taught students to monitor their own behavior. The kids kept near-zero levels even when no adult was watching.
Why it matters
If a learner starts to flap, rock, or spin when tasks get tough, run a quick escape test. Once you confirm the function, teach a simple help request. You can use a card, sign, or voice output. The stereotypy is likely to fade while work still gets done. This keeps sessions moving and builds a lifelong communication skill.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We tested the hypothesis that the "self-stimulatory" behaviors exhibited by some individuals may be socially mediated. Four developmentally disabled children who exhibited hand flapping and body rocking participated in a series of three experiments conducted to assess the influence of social variables on stereotyped behavior and to develop a treatment based on the assessment. Experiment 1 used an assessment procedure to determine the relative influences of social attention and task demands on stereotyped behavior. For all four children, hand flapping and body rocking increased when difficult academic tasks were introduced. Experiment 2 involved the use of a procedural time-out and demonstrated that removing task demands contingent on stereotyped behavior resulted in increased rates of hand flapping and body rocking. In Experiment 3, these results were used to develop a communication treatment that consisted of teaching the children to request assistance on the difficult tasks. This treatment resulted in significant reductions in self-stimulatory behavior. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that some forms of repetitive stereotyped behavior may come to serve social functions (e.g., escape from aversive situations). Teaching a functionally equivalent communicative alternative to escape-motivated stereotyped behavior can be an effective form of intervention for this problem.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1987 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1987.20-119