Functional Analysis and Noncontingent Reinforcement With Extinction in the Treatment of Perseverative Speech.

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of noncontingent reinforcement combined with extinction in the treatment of perseverative speech of an 11-year-old boy with autism spectrum disorder. Following a functional analysis that suggested perseverative speech was maintained by attention, treatment was introduced and consisted of delivering attention on a fixed-time schedule and placing perseverative speech on extinction. The intervention resulted in a 98.5% decrease in perseverative speech, which maintained over a 28-month period.