Although stereotypy was not directly targeted during intervention, it decreased for each participant as the frequency of
appropriate play increased. This pattern of responding (decreased stereotypy with improved play skills) has been reported in
previous research (e.g., Koegel et al., 1974; Lang, O’Reilly, et al., 2010). We posit that behavioral interventions targeting play
provide children with novel functional behaviors that encounter new communities of reinforcement, thus potentially
displacing stereotypy. In this study, response interruption and redirection may have contributed to the decrease in
stereotypy (Martinez & Betz, 2013) when physical guidance happened to interrupt stereotypy. However, that concern does
not diminish the fact that these data suggest it is possible that acquiring appropriate play skills early in life may preclude
later development of stereotypy in individuals with autism and future research aimed at investigating this hypothesis is
warranted.