The use of an escape contingency and a token economy to increase food acceptance.

SungWoo and team worked with a child who would not eat.

They let the child leave the table right after taking a set number of bites.

Each bite also earned a token the child could trade for toys later.

The bite goal moved up each week until the child took 15 bites every meal.

The child slowly met each higher bite goal.

By the end the child ate 15 bites of food at every meal.

Problem behavior stayed low while bites went up.

Siu et al. (2011) ran almost the same test and got a different answer.

They showed that letting kids leave for bites alone did not raise eating much.

Only when they also used escape extinction did bites jump.

Scott et al. (2024) looked at 266 kids and found the same: escape extinction is the main mover.

So SungWoo’s good result likely worked because the token gave extra power, not because escape alone was enough.

Najdowski et al. (2003), published the same year, also proved escape extinction is the key part.

You can still use tokens and early escape, but do not drop escape extinction.

Keep the “stay until you eat” rule and layer tokens on top.

That mix gives you both speed and happy kids.