Learned Behavior During Extinction

This episode is the 2nd of three parts on addressing challenging behavior and using extinction. In this episode, Megan yet again muses for the listeners and Joe provides his insight as a newly minted BCBA and someone who practices in the school setting. Typically, we are trained to implement extinction with our clients to remove reinforcers for challenging behavior. Often, this results in a drastic reduction in challenging behavior. However, in this episode we discuss, at what cost does this happen and does it make more sense to continue to reinforce challenging behavior instead of using extinction. 

The episode starts with a discussion around some of the lessons learned during Dr. Greg Hanley’s training on functional assessment that occurred in Virginia in March 2019. Dr. Miller then provides some examples of different types of learning that might occur during challenging behavior episodes. She pulls from examples of her own experiences as a practitioner and also as a parent. Joe gives his input on these examples based on his training too. The episode concludes by discussing the potential negative impacts of extinction bursts, including loss of time learning skills. 

Resources from this episode:

• #dobetter Webinar on Challenging Behavior – Look at the September 2018 Row
• Dr. Hanley’s Website on PFA
• Self-regulation in Young Children
• PDF File on Self-regulation