Prevalence of resurgence during thinning of multiple schedules of reinforcement following functional communication training

Abstract

The current study examined resurgence of problem behavior during thinning of multiple schedules of reinforcement following functional communication training replicating previous research (Briggs et al., 2018). Data were analyzed at each thinning step from subjects enrolled in an intensive day treatment program over a 5-year period. Results indicated that of the 239 thinning steps analyzed, resurgence was observed in 97 of those steps (40.6%), similar to results of Briggs et al. (2018). The data were also analyzed to estimate the magnitude of resurgence when it was observed. In the first session after the thinning step, the rate of problem behavior observed was 7 times higher than the average of the 5 sessions pre-thinning step.

Destructive behavior increases as a function of reductions in alternative reinforcement during schedule thinning: A retrospective quantitative analysis

“…The data are separated by FCT application (i.e., participant). The first four panels in the left column are from Mitteer et al (in press), and the remaining panels are from Muething et al (2021). A positive function emerges for the majority of FCT applications within and across the two studies.…”

“…Data from Mitteer et al (in press) contained information on the number of seconds of each treatment session in which the participant had access to the functional reinforcer; however, this same information was inconsistently available for participants in Muething et al (2021). Therefore, we used the highest resolution possible from each dataset by analyzing the reinforcement‐ and extinction‐component durations to quantify decreases in the availability of alternative reinforcement for Muething et al but precise reinforcer‐access durations to quantify this same information for Mitteer et al Because the number and duration of reinforcers and session duration could vary, we divided the total number of seconds in which the alternative reinforcer was available (Muething et al, 2021) or delivered (Mitteer et al, in press) during a session by the duration of the session to derive a proportion that served as the measure of alternative reinforcement availability. These proportions were then averaged across sessions that preceded (typically two sessions) or followed (typically three sessions) a decrease in alternative reinforcement availability.…”

“…Applying these criteria to the two studies resulted in 10 and 25 applications of FCT schedule thinning for Mitteer et al (in press) and Muething et al (2021), respectively. This equated to 38 and 70 transitions, respectively, in which the availability of alternative reinforcement decreased and destructive behavior resurged.…”

“…This was done to permit both within‐ and across‐participant analysis of resurgence magnitude. The final dataset was comprised of 10 total FCT applications (four from Mitteer et al, in press; six from Muething et al, 2021) and 41 total transitions (19 from Mitteer et al, in press; 22 from Muething et al, 2021).…”

“…Increased interest in the resurgence of destructive behavior has brought about a flurry of recent investigations on the prevalence, magnitude, and persistence of resurgence as it occurs in practice, as well as methods for mitigating such deleterious effects (Briggs et al, 2018;Brown et al, 2020;Fisher et al, 2018Fisher et al, , 2019Fisher et al, , 2020Fuhrman et al, 2016;Greer et al, 2020;Mitteer et al, in press;Muething et al, 2021). Studies on the prevalence of resurgence of destructive behavior during reinforcement schedule thinning have shown the phenomenon to be quite common.…”