Teaching delay tolerance to a child with Smith-Magenis syndrome in a classroom using a simplified approach

Abstract

Delay tolerance training is used to teach children to accept delayed access to a requested item or event without exhibiting challenging behaviors. It is used during schedule thinning following acquisition of a functional communication response (FCR) or trained on its own in a skills-based treatment package. Typically, delay tolerance training occurs in a clinic or hospital, and rarely in a school classroom. Most often delay tolerance training has been used with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study integrated findings from previous research on delay tolerance training to evaluate training in a classroom, with a child with Smith-Magenis syndrome, using a simplified protocol. The training resulted in acquisition of delay tolerance for 5 min from a baseline of 32 s (average). The participant's teachers were then trained to use similar strategies throughout the school day and quickly acquired and applied the procedure with reported benefits.