The modification of leisure behavior in a half-way house for retarded women.

Staff in a half-way house taught weaving, rug-making, and other crafts to 12 women with intellectual disabilities. They used short instructions first, then added small prizes for joining in. The team switched the order each day to see which part really mattered.

Sessions ran during free time in the living room. Observers counted how many women picked up the tools and worked for at least one minute.

Clear, step-by-step instruction made weaving and rug-making jump from a large share to a large share participation. After a few weeks, the women kept weaving even when prizes stopped.

Other crafts needed prizes every time. Without them, participation dropped back to baseline.

Laposa et al. (2017) also used prizes in a residential facility, but their detained teens needed the rewards every session to stay compliant. The women in Strain et al. (1977) kept weaving without prizes once they had the skill.

Iwata et al. (1990) showed that preschoolers only followed through when prizes were still on the table. The difference is age and skill: adults with ID kept the leisure habit after mastery, while young kids needed ongoing reinforcement.

Hattier et al. (2011) paired prompting with fading to teach new mands. S et al. used the same prompting logic—teach first, then fade the extra support—showing the strategy works for leisure as well as language.

You can run a brief teaching loop during downtime: show the steps, let the client practice, then praise. Once the resident can do the craft alone, you can move prizes to a new activity instead of keeping them forever. This frees up reinforcement for other goals and builds hobbies that last.