Discrete trial training is rooted in the hypothesis of Charles Ferster that autism was caused in part by a person's inability to react appropriately to "social reinforcers", such as praise or criticism. Lovaas's early work concentrated on showing that it was possible to strengthen autistic people's responses to these social reinforcers, but he found these improvements were not associated with any general improvement in overall behavior.In a 1987 paper, psychologists Frank Gresham and Donald MacMillan described a number of weaknesses in Lovass's research and judged that it would be better to call the evidence for his interventions "promising" rather than "compelling".Lovaas's original technique used aversives such as striking, shouting, and electrical shocks to punish undesired behaviors. By 1979, Lovaas had abandoned the use of aversives, and in 2012 the use of electric shocks was described as being inconsistent with contemporary practice. In 1985, Massachusetts medical authorities intervened after a case of fatal starvation at the Judge Rotenberg Center in which a 19-year-old woman was denied food by staff as a punishment.: 97 