Suppression of normal speech disfluencies through response cost.

Five college students earned one dollar to read aloud for ten minutes.

Each "um," "uh," or other disfluency cost them one penny on the spot.

The team counted disfluencies minute-by-minute and later tested if the smoother speech carried over to new passages.

Four of the five students cut disfluencies by more than half within the first session.

The smoother speech stuck when they read new passages and even held after the penalty stopped.

Robertson et al. (2013) repeated the penny-loss idea and showed it can also make adults stick with wrong rules longer.

Mueller et al. (2000) moved the same tactic into clinical work; response cost slashed destructive behavior by a large share even when kids could still escape tasks.

Clarke (1998) layered response cost on top of habit-reversal and wiped out teen tennis tantrums, showing the tool pairs well with other procedures.

If a one-cent penalty can clean up normal speech in minutes, you can test tiny response costs for other low-stakes verbal quirks. Try a nickel per filler word during social-skills groups or staff training and watch clarity improve almost instantly.