Association for Behavior Analysis International

Extinction involves the suspension of reinforcement for a target behavior and is a commonly used procedure in differential reinforcement of alternative behavior interventions. Empirical evidence supports the use of extinction to produce effective and efficient reductions in severe problem behavior. Notwithstanding this evidence, the use of extinction may also come with a host of concerns related to social acceptability, ecological validity, response bursting, and the relapse of problem behavior. Toward answering questions related to these concerns, some research has focused on evaluating the variables which contribute to the sensitivity to extinction and extinction bursts, as well as identifying interventions that do not subsume extinction. We present a collection of presentations which span the continuum from translational to applied research investigating critical questions regarding extinction. In this symposium, Dr. Andrew Craig will present on the effects of continuous and partial reinforcement on extinction performance. Sydney Arthur will present on the effects of degrading the quality parameter of reinforcement for interventions without extinction. Skylar DeWitt will present on the investigation of the magnitude of resurgence following differential reinforcement interventions with and without extinction. Finally, Dr. Mayank Gandhi will present data on the prevalence of extinction bursts for automatically maintained severe problem behavior. We are fortunate to welcome Dr. Daniel Mitteer as our discussant.

Recent human-laboratory analyses of extinction performance have demonstrated lack of sensitivity of human behavior to extinction contingencies. The current experiment aimed to evaluate whether arranging high (continuous reinforcement, CRF) vs. low (partial reinforcement, PRF) rates of reinforcement for human behavior in the laboratory affected extinction performance. Five adults pressed buttons for point reinforcers in two laboratory visits. During each visit, button pressing produced reinforcers for ten, 2-min baseline sessions after which pressing was placed on extinction for twenty, 2-min sessions. During one visit (the CRF condition), every press to a target button resulted in points in baseline. During the other (the PRF condition), target-button pressing produced points according to a variable-interval 10-s schedule in baseline. Button pressing tended to persist across sessions of extinction, but it persisted more in the PRF condition than in the CRF condition for most participants. Extinction also was associated with elevated levels of pressing to inactive buttons that were never associated with reinforcement. Additional work is needed to better understand why human behavior persists during extinction when evaluated in laboratory settings.

Individuals with autism are more likely to engage in severe problem behavior than their peers. An evidence-based treatment for severe problem behavior involves placing the problem behavior on extinction and differentially reinforcing an alternative response (DRA). However, extinction is not always feasible and may be unsafe or impractical to implement in some circumstances. For this reason, researchers have begun investigating the use of DRA without extinction with this population. At present, it is unclear how DRA with or without extinction may produce durable treatment outcomes, particularly as it pertains to the resurgence of problem behavior. This presentation describes a study that investigated differential resurgence outcomes following DRA with and without extinction using a three-phase resurgence assessment in a translational model. This presentation will describe significant differences in the presence of resurgence between groups, including differences in the magnitude or persistence of resurgence. Implications for future human-operant investigations of resurgence will be discussed.