EFFECTS OF VERBAL REPRIMANDS ON TARGETED AND UNTARGETED STEREOTYPY

Results of brief functional analyses indicated that motor and vocal stereotypy persisted in the absence of social consequences for five participants diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Subsequently, effects of a stimulus control procedure involving contingent reprimands for each participant's higher probability (targeted) stereotypy were evaluated. Results indicated that contingent verbal reprimands (i) decreased the targeted stereotypy for all five participants, (ii) decreased the untargeted stereotypy for two of five participants, and (iii) increased the untargeted stereotypy for one of five participants. Although response suppression was not achieved for any participant, three participants maintained low levels of the target stereotypy with one or two reprimands during 5-min sessions. Furthermore, two of those participants maintained near-zero levels of motor and vocal stereotypy during 10-min sessions. These findings suggest that signaled verbal reprimands may be a practical intervention for reducing stereotypy in some children with ASD. Some limitations of the findings and areas of future research are briefly discussed. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.