Elimination of an Infant's Crying through Response Prevention

After traditional methods had failed, a response prevention procedure was used to eliminate crying (at 4 a.m.) in a 19-wk.-old infant. The procedure involved initially attempting to extinguish awakening and crying by ignoring the crying of S; this was followed by continued extinction plus preventing S from rolling over (which prevented a sequence of behaviors leading to crying). Response prevention facilitated the elimination of crying.