Examination of clinical variables affecting resurgence: A reanalysis of 46 applications.

Despite the efficacy of behavioral interventions, resurgence of challenging behavior (e.g., aggression, self-injury) following successful treatment can still occur. Applied work has focused on identifying treatment-related variables thought to affect the occurrence and magnitude of resurgence. The current study describes the relation between several variables (i.e., phase duration, response rates in baseline and treatment, obtained rates of reinforcement, downshift in reinforcement step size) and resurgence in a retrospective consecutive controlled case series of 46 treatment applications for challenging behavior conducted in an inpatient setting. Only the downshift in reinforcement (e.g., schedule-thinning) step size was correlated with the magnitude of resurgence. These results are consistent with recent findings suggesting that treatment duration and other factors have inconsistent effects on resurgence of challenging behavior.

A systematic review of enhanced resurgence paradigms.

Following successful treatment in which problem behavior is reduced, it may reemerge as a function of changes in contextual stimuli or the worsening of reinforcement conditions for an alternative response. Although understudied, preliminary research suggests that simultaneous changes in contextual stimuli and reinforcement conditions may represent particularly exigent treatment challenges that create the condition for additive or superadditive relapse. The purpose of the present review was to systematically examine the relapse literature involving simultaneous changes in contextual stimuli and reinforcement conditions in relapse tests and experimental preparations arranged to evaluate their effect on response recovery. We identified 16 empirical articles spanning 27 experiments. Although all experiments included at least one condition that experienced a change in contextual stimuli and worsening of alternative reinforcement conditions, only two experiments included the comparison conditions needed to precisely evaluate additive and superadditive relapse. Our findings establish the preclinical generality of relapse effects associated with simultaneous changes to reinforcement conditions and contextual stimuli across a range of subjects, schedule arrangements, response topographies, reinforcers, and types of contextual changes. We make several recommendations for future research based on our findings from this nascent and clinically relevant subdomain of the relapse literature.

Transition States in Single-Case Experimental Designs: A Retrospective Consecutive-Controlled Case Series Investigation.

Behavioral interventions to decrease problem behavior often involve the use of single-case experimental designs in which an individual's responding during a treatment condition is compared to responding during a control or baseline condition. It is possible that during the initial introduction of treatment, problem behavior continues to occur at baseline rates before behavior reduction is observed; this phenomenon is called a transition state. Evaluated the prevalence of transition states in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and found that they occurred within 5.3% of the published literature. The current study replicated and extended Brogan et al. by evaluating the prevalence of transition states in unpublished clinical data of patients admitted to an inpatient hospital for the treatment of severe problem behavior. Using a retrospective consecutive-controlled case series, transition states were observed in 3% of cases for an average duration of 4.8 sessions. We discuss factors that may affect transitional behavior between phases and relevant implications for practice and research.

Modeling Behavioral Persistence with Resurgence as Choice in Context (RaC2): A Tutorial.

Resurgence as Choice in Context (RaC2) is a quantitative model for evaluating the reemergence of a previously extinguished response when alternative reinforcement is worsened. Rooted in the matching law, RaC2 proposes that allocation between target and alternative responding is based on changes in the relative value of each response option over time, accounting for periods with and without alternative reinforcement. Given that practitioners and applied researchers may have limited experience with constructing quantitative models, we provide a step-by-step task analysis for building RaC2 using Microsoft Excel 2013. We also provide a few basic learning activities to help readers better understand RaC2 itself, the variables that affect the model's predictions, and the clinical implications of those predictions. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40617-023-00796-y.

Efficacy of competing stimulus assessments: A summary of 35 consecutively encountered cases.

Competing stimulus assessments (CSAs) are designed to identify stimuli that reduce challenging behavior through competition with its maintaining reinforcers. Recently, Haddock and Hagopian (2020) found that over 92% of CSAs described in published studies identified at least one high-competition stimulus (i.e., a stimulus correlated with at least an 80% reduction in challenging behavior). The current study describes the outcomes of CSAs in a retrospective consecutive controlled case series study of 35 cases (individuals) admitted to an inpatient setting. Findings on the limited relation between the level of stimulus engagement and reductions in challenging behavior were replicated; however, the efficacy of CSAs was lower (only 47% of CSAs were successful in identifying one or more high-competition stimuli). Discrepant findings across studies on the efficacy of CSAs are discussed in terms of differences in the sample participants and how outcomes are reported, which vary depending on the study's research questions.

Examining resurgence and repetition with the evolutionary theory of behavior dynamics.

Recently, Redner et al. (2022) examined the nature of resurgence across repeated iterations of the traditional three-phase resurgence procedure with four pigeons. Although extant research findings in this area are mixed, Redner et al. found that resurgence generally increased in magnitude with repetition. These findings provide a baseline against which future research examining resurgence using this three-phase procedure can be compared and contrasted. The purpose of the present investigation was to examine resurgence via concurrent schedule arrangements similar to those described by Redner et al. with 30 artificial organisms (AOs) animated by the Evolutionary Theory of Behavior Dynamics (McDowell, 2004). We quantified the prevalence of resurgence across iterations and found that resurgence occurred in 86.7 % (156 of 180) iterations across all 30 AOs. This is strikingly similar to the resurgence prevalence estimates of 87.5 % reported by both Redner et al. (2022). However, we also found that the magnitude of target responding generally did not change significantly with repetition. This finding is inconsistent with Redner et al. but is consistent with the predictions of prominent quantitative models of behavioral persistence and a number of relevant studies (Volkert et al., 2009; Gratz et al., 2019). We also conducted exploratory analyses to examine how several variables (e.g., sensitivity to reinforcement, reinforcer magnitude, number of sessions of exposure to various phases) affect the prevalence and magnitude of resurgence among AOs.