Every consequence-based procedure has side effects. A good BCBA predicts them, builds safeguards into the plan, and tells the team what to expect.
Why it matters
A plan can be technically correct and still fail. Problem behavior may spike, the client may avoid staff, or the behavior may drop in one place and climb in another. If nobody saw this coming, the team may abandon the plan at the worst moment or strengthen the behavior.
Practice items on this task describe an unexpected change after treatment begins; you name the effect or pick the planning step that would have reduced it.
Key ideas
Reinforcement
- Adventitious reinforcement. A reinforcer can strengthen whatever behavior happens to occur just before it. In DRO or noncontingent reinforcement, a reinforcer delivered while the learner is yelling may strengthen yelling. Plan what staff do if another problem behavior is happening at delivery.
- Reliance on contrived reinforcers. Behavior built with tokens or edibles may stop when they are removed abruptly. Plan schedule thinning and a shift to natural reinforcers from the start.
- Satiation. A reinforcer used too often loses effectiveness. Rotate reinforcers and run preference assessments regularly.
Extinction
- Extinction burst. Responding often increases in rate, duration, or intensity before it decreases. New or more severe topographies may appear.
- Extinction-induced aggression and emotional responding. Crying, anger, or aggression can show up early in extinction.
- Spontaneous recovery. The behavior can briefly return after a period of absence, even though extinction is still in place.
- Resurgence. If a replacement behavior later stops producing reinforcement, the old problem behavior can return.
To reduce these risks, pair extinction with reinforcement for an alternative response (for example, functional communication training) or with noncontingent delivery of the maintaining reinforcer. Confirm the team can withhold the reinforcer every time, and ask whether the behavior can be tolerated safely during a burst. If it can't, write a safety plan first.
Punishment
- Emotional and aggressive reactions. Punishment can elicit crying, anger, or aggression.
- Escape and avoidance. The learner may avoid the person, setting, or task linked with the punisher.
- Behavioral contrast. Behavior may decrease where punishment occurs and increase in settings where it doesn't.
- Undesirable modeling. Learners may imitate the punishing actions they observe.
- Overuse by the person delivering it. When a punisher stops problem behavior right away, the adult's use of punishment is negatively reinforced, so it may creep upward.
- Habituation. Starting with a mild punisher and slowly raising intensity can produce a learner who keeps responding despite strong punishers.
Safeguards: use punishment only after less intrusive, reinforcement-based options have been tried or ruled out, get informed consent, always combine it with reinforcement for an alternative behavior, train and supervise implementers, take data on side effects as well as the target, and set clear criteria for stopping. This fits the Ethics Code's expectation that you minimize risk of harm and favor reinforcement.
Definitions
- Extinction burst: an initial increase in the rate, duration, or intensity of a behavior when reinforcement is first withheld.
- Extinction-induced aggression: aggression or emotional behavior that appears when a behavior first stops producing its reinforcer.
- Spontaneous recovery: a brief return of an extinguished behavior after time has passed, without any change in the contingency.
- Resurgence: the return of a previously reinforced behavior when a more recently reinforced behavior is placed on extinction.
- Adventitious reinforcement: accidental strengthening of a behavior that happens to precede a reinforcer the behavior did not produce.
- Behavioral contrast: a change in reinforcement or punishment in one setting produces an opposite change in the same behavior in another setting.
- Habituation: reduced effectiveness of a stimulus after repeated exposure, as when a gradually intensified punisher stops suppressing behavior.
- Escape and avoidance: behavior that ends or prevents contact with a person, setting, or task linked with a punisher.
Examples from a session
Planning ahead in three settings
- Clinic, extinction: Theo, 5, hits to escape tabletop work. His BCBA plans escape extinction plus a "break" card that earns a 30-second break. She warns the family that hitting may get worse for a few sessions, writes a blocking and safety plan, and sets a rule: staff never end the task after hitting.
- School, punishment: Jasmine, 14, loses points for cursing in class. Her BCBA asks the family to track cursing at home too, to catch behavioral contrast early, and watches for signs that Jasmine avoids the teacher who removes points.
- Day program, reinforcement: Mr. Okafor, 45, earns a coffee break for every 20 minutes without shouting. Staff are trained to delay the break a few seconds if he is pacing loudly at the moment it comes due, so pacing is not accidentally reinforced.
- Non-example of contrast: If Jasmine's cursing also drops at home, that is generalization of the treatment effect, not an unwanted effect to mitigate.
Common mistakes / exam traps
- Stopping extinction during the burst. If the team gives in when the behavior is at its worst, they reinforce the more intense version. Decide in advance whether the plan can survive a burst.
- Reading spontaneous recovery as failure. A brief return after a weekend is expected. Keep the plan going and prepare staff for it.
- Increasing punisher intensity gradually. This invites habituation. Mild punishers combined with reinforcement are preferred to escalating intensity.
- Reacting instead of planning. When a stem asks what the BCBA should have done, pick the step taken before treatment (side-effect data, a safety plan, a reinforcement component, caregiver preparation).
Exam trap
Spontaneous recovery vs. resurgence: ask what changed. If only time passed, it is spontaneous recovery. If a replacement behavior stopped being reinforced, it is resurgence.
Exam trap
Behavioral contrast vs. generalization: look at the untreated setting. If the behavior goes up there, think contrast. If it goes down there too, that is generalization of the treatment effect.
Quick check
Ben, 9, learned to ask for a break instead of screaming, and screaming stopped. A new staff member starts ignoring his break requests. Within a few sessions, screaming returns. Which effect best explains this?
Related topics
- Differential reinforcement (DRA, DRO, DRL, DRH) with and without extinction (G.2)
- Punishment procedures: time-out, response cost, and overcorrection (G.17)
- Emotional and elicited side effects of behavior-change procedures (G.18)
- Operant vs. respondent extinction, as procedure and as process (B.11)
- Choosing socially valid replacement behavior (H.3)
- Planning to prevent relapse (H.5)