Extinction is one of the most common behavior-reduction procedures you will run, and one of the easiest to get wrong. A behavior that keeps paying off keeps happening, so you stop the payoff. That takes knowing what the payoff is, staying consistent, and expecting things to get harder first.
Why it matters
Extinction belongs in a behavior plan only after your BCBA has identified what keeps the behavior going (its function). You are usually the one who carries it out, session after session. If you withhold the wrong thing, or give in now and then, the behavior will not decrease and may become even more persistent.
Practice scenarios for this task describe a behavior and its function, then ask what extinction looks like, what an early increase means, or what the RBT does next.
Key ideas
- Extinction targets the maintaining reinforcer. The behavior no longer produces the specific consequence that has been reinforcing it. What you withhold depends on the function:
- Attention: the behavior no longer gets comments, eye contact, or reactions.
- Escape: the task or demand stays in place, so the behavior no longer ends or delays it.
- Tangible: the behavior no longer gets the item or activity.
- Automatic: the plan removes or masks the sensory consequence the behavior produces.
- "Ignoring" is not the same as extinction. Planned ignoring withholds attention. It is extinction only when attention is what maintains the behavior. Ignoring escape-maintained behavior while the learner gets out of the work still reinforces it.
- Be ready for a burst. Soon after extinction starts, behavior often gets worse for a while: more often, longer, or more intense. New behaviors and emotional responses can also appear. Not every case shows a burst, and bursts are less likely when a replacement behavior is reinforced. A burst usually means the reinforcer really is being withheld, not that the plan failed.
- Decreases are gradual. Extinction rarely works immediately. Behavior with a long history of intermittent reinforcement tends to take longer to decrease.
- Consistency is everything. Giving in "just this once" turns extinction into intermittent reinforcement, which can make the behavior harder to reduce. Every person, every time, as the plan says. That includes every source of the reinforcer: if classmates still laugh, or a behavior has two functions and only one reinforcer is withheld, the behavior is still reinforced.
- Extinction is rarely used alone. Plans usually pair it with reinforcement for a replacement behavior (such as a request) and with antecedent strategies. See differential reinforcement.
- Safety comes first, and the plan decides. Your BCBA decides whether extinction is safe and appropriate. If behavior becomes dangerous, follow the plan's safety steps and contact your supervisor.
Definitions
- Extinction: no longer delivering the reinforcer that has been maintaining a behavior, so the behavior decreases over time.
- Extinction burst: a temporary increase in the frequency, duration, or intensity of the behavior soon after extinction begins.
- Spontaneous recovery: the reappearance of a behavior that had decreased under extinction, often after a break such as a weekend or the start of a new session, even though it is still not reinforced.
- Escape extinction: extinction for behavior maintained by negative reinforcement; the demand continues, so the behavior no longer produces escape.
- Sensory extinction: extinction for automatically maintained behavior; the sensory consequence of the behavior is removed or masked.
- Resistance to extinction: how long a behavior keeps occurring after reinforcement stops.
Examples from a session
Matching extinction to function
- Attention (school): Noah, age 7, makes silly noises during group lessons, and his functional assessment points to teacher attention. You keep teaching without looking at him or commenting on the noises, and you praise him when he raises his hand.
- Escape (clinic): Amara, age 11, tears her worksheet when it is time for writing. Her plan uses escape extinction, so you calmly give her a new copy and continue the task with the prompts her plan describes.
- Tangible (home): Leo, age 4, screams for the tablet. Screaming no longer gets the tablet, and handing you his "tablet, please" card does, on the schedule his plan sets.
- Automatic (day program): Ray, an adult client, flicks a light switch over and over for the visual effect. The plan has the switch disconnected, so flicking it no longer changes the lights.
- Non-example (clinic): Jordan, age 6, hits the table to get attention, and his RBT removes a token from his board each time. This is not extinction: it adds a consequence (losing a token) instead of withholding the attention that maintains hitting. It is a punishment procedure.
The procedures look different, but the logic is the same: the behavior stops producing the consequence that maintained it.
Common mistakes / exam traps
- Giving in during the burst. Reinforcing the behavior when it peaks teaches that bigger behavior works. Keep following the plan and record what you see.
- Stopping the plan on your own. An early increase is expected. Report it to your supervisor; do not quit or change the procedure yourself.
- Calling spontaneous recovery a failure. A brief return of the behavior after a break is common. Stay consistent and note it in your data.
- Confusing extinction with punishment. Extinction withholds the maintaining reinforcer. Reprimands, time-out, and token loss add or remove something else, so they are punishment procedures. See punishment procedures.
- Talking the learner through it. For attention-maintained behavior, long explanations ("We don't scream because…") are attention.
Exam trap
Planned ignoring vs. escape extinction: ask what the behavior gets. Ignoring is extinction only when attention maintains the behavior. If the behavior is escape-maintained, extinction means the demand stays in place. Ignoring the learner, or giving a "calm-down break", while the work goes away still reinforces escape.
Exam trap
Extinction burst vs. spontaneous recovery: the clue is timing. Behavior that gets worse right after extinction starts is a burst. Behavior that had decreased and then returns after a weekend or a break is spontaneous recovery.
Quick check
On the first day of extinction for attention-maintained yelling, Lucy, an 8-year-old, yells more often than usual and starts tapping the RBT's arm. What is most likely happening?