Association for Behavior Analysis International

Previous research in the treatment of severe behavior problems has found the appearance of extinction bursts following the suspension of reinforcer delivery is less than common, and similar findings have been found in basic human operant research. In contrast, extinction bursts have been reported widely in animal research following suspension of reinforcer delivery, leading some to suggest a difference between humans and non-humans. We propose that extinction bursts, in fact, have not received a thorough functional analysis, and it may be premature to conclude lack of consistent findings with humans are due to species differences. The present study was designed to clarify the role response topography and stimulus modality may play in promoting extinction bursts. Twenty-five human participants watched a preferred video. Across groups, the audio or video stream was removed from playback, leaving the other stream intact. Participants could restore the video/audio stream by pressing a force-sensitive button, where either low (250 g) or high (750 g) forces were required to restore playback. At 20 and 30 minutes into the session, video/audio streams were removed, but participants could not restore playback for 20 s. The results showed that extinction bursting was more likely when baseline forces were lower and when audio streams were removed compared to the removal of video. The findings suggest that the wide variability in the observation of extinction bursts may be due to incidental differences in response topographies. Specifically, high-force topographies appear less likely to result in “bursting” during extinction. Also, reinforcer modality is shown to alter the likelihood and extent of extinction bursts.

Previous basic studies have demonstrated how different schedules of reinforcement affect the rate and force of responses (Notterman & Mintz 1965). The results of basic studies on force are relevant for applied studies on the assessment and treatment of severe problem behavior. The present study evaluated the force and rate of button pressing during continuous and intermittent reinforcement and extinction. We conducted two experiments with three children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. In Experiment 1, two conditions were compared using a reversal design (i.e., intermittent reinforcement and extinction). In Experiment 2, three conditions were compared in a sequence using a reversal design (i.e., intermittent reinforcement, continuous reinforcement, and extinction). In summary, the results across both experiments demonstrated how changes in the schedule of reinforcement affected the rate and force of responses. The results will be discussed in terms of future applied research on the force of problem behavior during assessment and function-based intervention.

Functional Analysis (FA) methodology has become the hallmark of behavioral assessment and plenty of studies have been conducted to refine its procedures (Hanley, Iwata, & McCord, 2003). However, there is almost no research about changes in the variation of target responses as the assessment progresses. The purpose of the current study was to describe changes in the number and rate of aggression topographies observed during demand sessions of FA for four participants whose problem behavior maintained by escape. The results showed that for all participants the number of topographies decreased from the first to the last session. Also, the rate of responding for one particular topography either increased or remained at high levels after the first session while the remaining topographies of response decreased in rate. The implications of the decrease in variability in topographies of response when conducting FAs for problem behavior will be discussed as well as how this relates to research on modification of response classes.