Behavioral Treatment of Self-Choking in a Developmentally Normal Child

ABSTRACT

In the past, self-choking behavior has been associated with individuals who were either developmentally disabled or experienced psychosis symptoms, and has usually been treated with aversive procedures. A time-series design using several different non-aversive behavioral procedures was used to analyze these treatment effects on an 11-year-old girl whose habit of self-choking interfered with normal functioning. Habit reversal procedures, which implement an incompatible response in place of the target behavior, did not, as first hypothesized, have a positive effect on self-choking behavior. However, attention from a male therapist as a positive reinforcer initially decreased the frequency of self-chokes and percent of time spent self-choking. Attention contingent on performance was not as effective on the child's behavior as attention administered noncontingently. Overall, the behavioral treatment approach applied here does not appear to reduce the target behavior in a clinically significant manner. Implications for future treatment approaches for this behavior are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Behavioral treatment
• self-choking
• developmentally normal child