Question

Describe the extinction procedure for a behavior maintained by negative and positive reinforcement and naturally occurring sensory consequences.

Answer 1

Extinction can be comprehended a process of not reinforcing inappropriate or undesirable behaviour. Extinction helps in removing interfering behaviours and substituting interfering behaviours with more desirable and appropriate behaviours. Extinction is applied in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). For extinction to occur, intervention strategies like Functional Communication Training (FCT), Differential Reinforcement, Non-Contingent Reinforcement, Self-Management, and Response Interruption/Redirection (RIR) are used. For extinction to occur, the undesirable behaviour is no longer reinforced changing as a consequence of the behaviour, which generally tends to increase the frequency, duration, and/or intensity of the target behaviour which is known as an extinction burst. To minimize the extinction burst, appropriate intervention strategies are utilized. For example, extinction can take place to solve sleep problems by naturally occurring sensory consequences like good sleep and the experience of activeness, which will further reduce or extinct sleep problems.