Decreasing Behavior with Nonpunishment Procedures

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Decreasing Behavior with Nonpunishment Procedures

• Chapters 21, 22, 23

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What Does Nonpunishment Mean?

• Punishment
• Occurs when a stimulus change immediately follows
  a response and
• Decreases the future frequency of that type of
  behavior in similar conditions
• Nonpunishment procedures that decrease behavior
• Extinction
• Differential reinforcement arrangements
• Antecedent arrangements

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Differential Reinforcement Arrangements Used to
Decrease Behavior

• Differential Reinforcement reinforcing one
  response class and withholding reinforcement for
  another response class
• As a behavior reduction procedure, DR is
• Providing reinforcement contingent upon the
  occurrence of behavior other than the problem
  behavior
• Or contingent upon a reduced rate of the problem
  behavior
• Withholding reinforcement as much as possible for
  the problem behavior

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Differential Reinforcement of

• Incompatible Behavior (DRI)
• Alternative Behavior (DRA)
• Other Behavior (DRO)
• Low Rates of Responding (DRL)
• High Rates of Responding (DRH)

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DRA

• Reinforcement of an appropriate alternative to
  the problem behavior
• Withholding of reinforcement following instances
  of problem behavior (extinction)
• Sometimes the new behavior is a communication
  response that results in the same reinforcer as
  the target behavior Functional Communication
  Training (FCT)
• Sometimes the new behavior and the problem
  behavior cant be done at the same time this is
  called DRI whats the benefit of this?

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Durand (1999)
(DRA)
of Intervals
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Implementing DRA and DRI

• Select incompatible and alternative behaviors
  that are
• Require equal or less effort than the problem
  behavior
• If possible, already in the learners repertoire
• Likely to be reinforced in the learners natural
  environment
• Select reinforcers that are
• Powerful try to use same reinforcer that
  maintains problem behavior if you can!
• Can be delivered consistently and immediately
  (than switch from CRF to Intermittent schedule)
• Withhold reinforcement for the problem behavior
  (Extinction)
• Combine with other procedures if the behavior is
  destructive or dangerous

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Should the Replacement Behavior Be Saying Im
angry?

• It may be true that a student is feeling angry,
  sad, or frustrated
• Will teaching the student to say, Im angry be
  an appropriate replacement behavior?
• What reinforcer will be delivered contingent upon
  Im angry?
• How will another person know what to do in
  response to that statement?
• Learning to describe emotions is an important
  skill
• But it may be beneficial to teach a student to
  specify the reinforcer or engage in a functional
  skill instead

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DRO

• Reinforcer is delivered contingent on
  the absence of a
• problem behavior whats the
  problem with the term DRO?
• Arranging a DRO schedule
• Identify the target behaviors reinforcer
• Identify the mean interresponse time (IRT) during
  baseline
• Total of all baseline sessions/total number of
  responses
• Set the initial DRO value slightly less than the
  mean baseline IRT
• Deliver the reinforcer only at the end of
  intervals in which no target behaviors have
  occurred (Interval DRO)
• or at a specific moment when no target behaviors
  are occurring (Momentary DRO)
• Hint think of momentary time sampling and
  partial interval recording
• If the target behavior occurs, reset the interval

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Types of DRO
Interval Momentary
Fixed FI-DRO FM-DRO
Variable VI-DRO VM-DRO
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(No Transcript)
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DRO Video
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Guidelines for Using DRO
Step Start at 15 s incr
1 30 s 100
2 45 s 50
3 60 s 33
4 90 s 50
5 120 s 33
6 160 s 33
7 230 s 44
8 330 s 43
9 450 s 37
10 600 s 33

• Interval DRO may be more effective than Momentary
  DRO
• But VM-DRO may be more practical
• Increase the DRO interval gradually as behavior
  improves (recall LeBlanc, Hagopian, Maglieri,
  Poling, 2002)
• Watch for
• Other problem behaviors occurring during the
  interval
• Problem behavior occurring at the time of
  reinforcement
• Combine DRO with other procedures

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Antecedent Interventions Used to Decrease Behavior

• Antecedent Intervention Behavior change
  strategy in which motivating operations are
  manipulated
• 3 established antecedent interventions
• Noncontingent reinforcement (NCR)
• High-probability (Hi-p) request sequence
• Functional communication training (FCT)

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NCR

• Reinforcer that maintains a problem behavior is
  delivered on a fixed-time (FT) or variable-time
  (VT) schedule (also continuous)
• Independent of the learners behavior
• How is noncontingent reinforcement a misnomer?

Vollmer et al. (1998)
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How Does NCR manipulate Motivating Operations?

• Abolishing Operation Motivating operation that
  decreases the reinforcing effectiveness of a
  consequence
• e.g., food consumption decreases the reinforcing
  effectiveness of food
• In the case of NCR
• Noncontingent access to attention decreases the
  reinforcing effectiveness of attention (social
  SR)
• Noncontingent access to escape decreases the
  reinforcing effectiveness of escape (social SR-)
• Noncontingent access to sensory stimulation
  decreases the reinforcing effectiveness of
  sensory stimulation (automatic SR)

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Guidelines for Using NCR

• First conduct Functional Assessment
• Use with extinction or DRO
• Initial time interval should be dense and then
  thinned
• Total duration of all baseline sessions/total
  number of occurrences of the problem behavior
• Set the initial interval slightly below this

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Advantages and Disadvantages of NCR

• Advantages
• Easy to use
• Creates positive learning environment
• If used with extinction, can reduce extinction
  burst
• Chance pairing of productive behavior and NCR
  could strengthen the productive behavior

• Disadvantages
• Free access to NCR stimuli may reducte motivation
  to engage in adaptive behavior
• Chance pairing of non-productive behavior and NCR
  could strengthen the non-productive behavior

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High-P Request Sequence

• Teacher presents 2-5 easy-to-follow requests for
  which the learner has a history of compliance
  (hi-p)
• When the learner complies, the teacher
  immediately gives the target request for which
  the learner has a history of noncompliance
  (low-p)
• Sometimes called behavioral momentum

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How Does the High-P Request Sequence Manipulate
MOs?

• Reinforcement during the high-p requests reduces
  the value of escape from the low-p request
• Makes the situation less aversive

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Selecting the Hi-p Requests

• Selecting the hi-p requests
• Create a list of requests
• Present each one in 5 separate sessions
• Hi-p requests are those that the student complies
  with 100 of the time

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Functional Communication Training

• Conduct a functional assessment
• Use the reinforcer maintaining problem behavior
  to teach a communication response
• Can be vocalization, sign, written word, picture,
  voice output system, gesture
• How do you do this???
• Best if combined with extinction
• Rather than changing the MO, FCT develops an
  alternative behavior that is sensitive to the MO
  that evokes the target problem behavior

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Advantages Disadvantages of FCT

• Advantages
• Generalization Maintenance of the communicative
  response
• High social validity
• When using FRI, may be effective without using
  extinction

• Disadvantages
• Usually includes extinction and side effects of
  extinction
• Extinction is very difficult to use consistently
• Inappropriate high rates of new response
• These may occur at impossible times

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Extinction

• Procedure Discontinuation of the
  response-reinforcer relationship
• Process decline in response rate caused by
  withholding reinforcement
• Extinction is procedurally different depending on
  what the maintaining reinforcer of the behavior
  ishow?
• What are possible categories of maintaining
  reinforcers?
• How do you know what reinforcer maintains a
  behavior?

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Iwata, Pace, Cowdery, and Miltenberger (1994)
EXT (Sensory)
EXT (Escape)
EXT (Attention)
Irrelevant
Contra-indicated
Treatment
Social SR (Attention)
Irrelevant
Treatment
Contra-indicated
Social SR- (Escape)
Treatment
Irrelevant
Irrelevant
Automatic SR (Sensory)
What Makes Extinction Work An Analysis of
Procedural Form and Function
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Misuse of the term Extinction

• Extinction is NOT just any decrease in behavior
• Extinction is NOT the same as forgetting
• Whats forgetting?
• Extinction is NOT the same as response blocking
• Extinction is not necessarily ignoring

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Characteristics of Extinction

• Extinction alone has not been well-studied in
  humans in applied settings!
• In ABA, we always combine extinction with other
  procedures (treatment package)
• Although these characteristics have been clearly
  documented in basic research, apply them
  cautiously to your learners
• Initial increase in response frequency and
  magnitude
• Extinction burst immediate increase in the
  frequency of a response after the discontinuation
  of reinforcement
• Gradual decrease in frequency and magnitude
• Emotional responses (e.g., aggression, crying)
• Extinction-induced variability
• Spontaneous recovery

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The Extinction Burst (Iwata et al., 1994)
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Resistance to Extinction

• Initial continued responding during an extinction
  procedure
• Variables Affecting RTE
• Schedule of reinforcement
• Intermittent schedules produce
• Variable schedules produce
• Thinner schedules of SR produce
• Motivating Operations
• RTE is greater when carried out with a strong EO
  in effect
• Number, magnitude, and quality of reinforcement
• Effects are unclear!
• Response effort
• A low effort response is more resistant to
  extinction
• Number of previous extinction trials
• The 2nd extinction is

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Higbee, Carr, and Patel (2002)
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Guidelines for Effective Use of Extinction

• Withhold all reinforcers maintaining the problem
  behavior
• Withhold reinforcement consistently
• Combine extinction with other behaviors
• Use instructions
• Plan for extinction-produced aggression
• Increase the number of extinction trials
• Include significant others in extinction
• Guard against unintentional extinction
• Maintain extinction-decreased behavior