Vocal self-stimulatory behavior

[Guest guest]

Hello group,

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on decreasing vocal

self-stimulatory behavior. The child is 4 years old and engages in a

high-pitched scream-type of vocalization. He has about 100 mands, and is now

learning short sentences/phrases. He also has extensive tact, receptive, and

intraverbal repetoires.

I know its difficult without knowing the child.

We did a functional assessment and the functions were attention and sensory. We

have so far tried:

Re-directing to talk or sing songs (this resulted in an increase of the screams

for attention) or use oral motor toys (whistle, harmonica)

Reinforcing for spontaneously singing songs

Non-verbally redirecting to engage in a functional activity, such as play with a

neutral toy (therapist used physical prompts so as not to give social attention)

Most recently we've started a DRO interval schedule of reinforcement, such that

he receives a reinforcer after every 30 seconds that he does not engage in the

vocal stim. We do this twice a day for 30 minutes each time. Maybe that is not

enough?

Thank you for your help,

[Guest guest]

Hello ,

I am sure that you will get some good suggestions on what else to do

for vocal stims from other group members. I'm really writing to say

that if the main function it serves is sensory, so much of progress is

simply a matter of maturity. We certainly tried all of the

interventions you mentioned with my now " indistinguishable from normal "

7 year old son. We gave more thought to vocals stims (and also eye

contact) than all of his other programs put together. I began to

despair that he would always make funny noises in public. We realized

that things were looking up when he started to comply with our requests

to limit " silly talk " as we called it, to his bedroom and playroom, but

only when he was alone. Also, when he was eventually diagnosed with

ADHD, inattentive type, and started on the lowest dose of Concerta, the

vocal stims went away almost completely. Now we hear bits of silly

talk as he plays alone with his plastic characters, but never if he

has a playdate over. In fact, the other day he was doing some silly

talk with his Castle play set when I needed to get something in the

room. He stopped the noises and told me that he would wait until I

left because he didn't want anyone else to hear it! Which made me

very happy indeed. I guess he just needs to do this, on some level,

and though I would prefer that he never did it, I realize that we just

need to sort of chip away at it over time.

So I don't have a lot of suggestions, but just wanted to say that it

does get better with time. For us, it was the last thing to get

better.

Janet

On Aug 5, 2004, at 10:29 PM, Skocypec wrote:

> Hello group,

>

> I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on decreasing vocal

> self-stimulatory behavior. The child is 4 years old and engages in a

> high-pitched scream-type of vocalization. He has about 100 mands, and

> is now learning short sentences/phrases. He also has extensive tact,

> receptive, and intraverbal repetoires.

>

> I know its difficult without knowing the child.

>

> We did a functional assessment and the functions were attention and

> sensory. We have so far tried:

> Re-directing to talk or sing songs (this resulted in an increase of

> the screams for attention) or use oral motor toys (whistle, harmonica)

> Reinforcing for spontaneously singing songs

> Non-verbally redirecting to engage in a functional activity, such as

> play with a neutral toy (therapist used physical prompts so as not to

> give social attention)

>

> Most recently we've started a DRO interval schedule of reinforcement,

> such that he receives a reinforcer after every 30 seconds that he does

> not engage in the vocal stim. We do this twice a day for 30 minutes

> each time. Maybe that is not enough?

>

> Thank you for your help,

>

>

>