Distinguishing between extinction and punishment effects of response blocking: A replication

Lerman and Iwata (1996) described a method for distinguishing between senso ry extinction and punishment effects of response blocking on self-injurious behavior maintained independent of social contingencies. Results of their study suggested that blocking decreased the self-injurious hand mouthing of their participant via punishment. The current replication of these procedu res with the self-injurious eye poking of a woman with developmental disabi lities produced patterns of responding indicating that, for this participan t, blocking functioned as an extinction procedure.