Extinction and punishment can lower problem behavior, but rarely in a straight line. Behavior often gets worse first, old behaviors can return, and learners may react with strong emotion or try to get away. This lesson covers these side effects and what to do about them.
Why it matters
If you expect these side effects, you are much less likely to give up on a plan at the worst moment. A caregiver who gives in during a burst, or an RBT who quietly changes a procedure because "it's not working," can teach the learner that bigger, louder behavior pays off. Side effects are also important safety and dignity information, so your supervisor needs to hear about them.
Practice items on this task usually describe a change in behavior and ask you to name it or choose the RBT's next step.
Key ideas
- Extinction often (but not always) starts with a burst. When reinforcement for a behavior stops, the behavior may briefly increase in how often, how long, or how intensely it happens. New behaviors may also appear. A burst usually means extinction is in place, not that it has failed.
- Extinction is gradual. Behavior usually declines over time, not all at once.
- Extinguished behavior can come back. It may reappear after a break in time (spontaneous recovery) or when reinforcement for the newer replacement behavior stops (resurgence).
- Emotional responding is common. Crying, yelling, frustration, and aggression can appear when a reinforcer is suddenly withheld or when a punisher is delivered.
- Punishment has its own risks. Learners may escape or avoid the person, task, or setting linked to the punisher. Punished behavior may increase somewhere else (behavioral contrast). Learners may also imitate punishment toward others, and adults may start using it too often because it stops behavior fast.
- Your role is consistency, safety, and reporting. Follow the plan exactly, keep everyone safe, record what you see, and tell your supervisor. Changing the plan is your supervisor's call.
Definitions
- Extinction burst: a temporary increase in the frequency, duration, or intensity of a behavior right after reinforcement for it is withheld.
- Response variation: during extinction, the learner tries new forms of the behavior, such as banging on a door after knocking stops working.
- Spontaneous recovery: the return of a previously extinguished behavior after time has passed, even though extinction is still in place. It is usually brief and weaker if extinction continues.
- Resurgence: the return of a previously extinguished behavior when reinforcement for a more recently reinforced alternative behavior stops or is reduced (for example, delayed).
- Emotional responding: crying, anger, or other emotional behavior that occurs when reinforcement stops or a punisher is delivered. Aggression that follows the start of extinction is often called extinction-induced aggression.
- Escape and avoidance: behavior that ends or prevents contact with an aversive situation, such as running from the person who delivers a punisher.
- Behavioral contrast: punished behavior decreases in one setting but increases in another setting where it is not punished.
- Modeling of punishment: the learner imitates the punishing behavior, using it with peers, siblings, or others.
Examples from a session
Side effects in real settings
- Burst: At home, Theo, 5, used to get his mom's attention by banging on the table. On the first day of planned ignoring, he bangs harder and longer and starts yelling too. His RBT, Grace, keeps following the plan, praises his calm requests, and records the increase.
- Spontaneous recovery: Wren, 12, stopped interrupting during clinic sessions. After a week-long holiday break, she interrupts twice on the first day back. Her RBT continues the plan, and the interruptions fade quickly.
- Emotional responding: Mateo, 3, used to get the tablet back by whining. Now that whining no longer earns it, he cries and drops to the floor. His RBT keeps him safe, follows the plan, and notes the crying in the session record.
- Resurgence: At school, Diego, 9, learned to hand over a "break" card instead of tearing worksheets. When a substitute teacher ignores the card all morning, worksheet tearing returns. The RBT notes the missed card requests and reports them.
- Escape and avoidance: Aisha, 34, attends a day program where staff give a brief reprimand when she takes food from other people's plates. She starts skipping the group lunchroom and asks to eat alone in the hallway. Her RBT documents the pattern for the supervisor.
- Non-example (not a burst): Sam's screaming rises the week his teacher adds harder math pages, but nothing about how adults respond to screaming has changed. Extinction never started, so this is not a burst. The RBT records it and reports it.
In every case, the RBT does not invent a fix. If behavior becomes dangerous, follow the crisis or safety plan and contact your supervisor right away.
Common mistakes / exam traps
- Calling a burst a failed plan. A sudden increase right after extinction starts is expected. Stopping now usually makes things worse.
- Giving in during a burst. Delivering the reinforcer after escalated behavior reinforces that higher intensity and can make the behavior more persistent.
- Mixing up spontaneous recovery and resurgence. Ask what triggered the return. Time passing points to spontaneous recovery. Loss of reinforcement for a replacement behavior points to resurgence.
- Thinking punishment teaches what to do. Punishment can reduce a behavior, but it does not teach a replacement. That is why plans pair it with reinforcement for appropriate behavior.
Exam trap
Resurgence vs extinction burst: if an old problem behavior returns after it had dropped, right when the replacement behavior stops being reinforced, it is resurgence. A burst is an increase at the very start of extinction.
Exam trap
Extinction burst vs spontaneous recovery: check timing. A burst comes in the first sessions of extinction, before the behavior declines. Spontaneous recovery is a brief return after the behavior had already dropped, often after a break such as a weekend.
Quick check
Nia, 6, has been in a program that uses brief verbal reprimands for grabbing. Her mother reports that Nia now says 'No! Stop that!' in a sharp voice to her little brother whenever he touches her toys. Which side effect of punishment does this best show?