Extinction – Not Just for Dinosaurs

By Eric Kastan, M.A.,LMFT, BCBA

This time of the year, we tend to start to take inventory of the year and what is and is not working. This may include behavior and how we all affect each other.

Last month I wrote about how to increase the chance on someone’s behavior occurring through reinforcement. Well, when we take some inventory, one may realize that they have been reinforcing a negative or unwanted behavior. What do we do then? One of the easiest principles in ABA to handle this is called extinction. Some may have heard this called planned ignoring, but real extinction has more to it.

Extinction is the process of removing reinforcement from a behavior that has been previously reinforced which should then decrease and possibly eliminate the targeted behavior from occurring again. This means if you, by accident or by purpose, have been reinforcing a behavior, and now you do not want or like it, you can stop the reinforcement, and the unwanted behavior should stop.

 Simple, but not. First we need to identify what reinforcement you are giving, and then eliminate it. When this happens, the targeted behavior may sky rocket in what is called an extinction burst.This burst, usually brief (week or so, but may be longer) can feel like a war zone. The behavior may take new forms and increase. The danger is if you give in to the burst, this may become the new level of behavior, as it would now once again be reinforced. So when extinction is the chosen method, everyone needs to prepare for it. The process works well and will eliminate targeted behaviors quickly, but is only successful if everyone involved knows what can happen and understands that they cannot respond during an extinction burst.

So extinction, when in terms of targeted maladaptive behaviors is a good thing, unlike extinction of a species. This process most people can do with minimal guidance and a good plan, and the plan should include what to do when escalating behaviors are seen. An example behavior is tantrums. When a person exhibits a set of behaviors that are defined as a tantrum and another person gives in to their demands (reinforcement), the person is likely to do the behaviors again and again. To eliminate this, consider how to stop the person from giving the reinforcement when a tantrum is occurring. The extinction burst may come, and the tantrums may get increasingly longer, bigger, louder, etc… If you hold tight, stick to the plan and don’t reinforce the behaviors, this will end, tantrums will decrease, and may be eliminated entirely (especially if extinction is paired with another reinforcement procedure, which then you would have a system called Differential Reinforcement). The plan should include what to do when the burst comes and the tantrums become more aggressive and possibly damaging. Guidance is really needed to help create the plan and tweak as needed. This is where most families need help with ABA and how to apply it. When doing extinction everyone possible needs to agree to the plan.