• Ryan T Kimball, Michael E Kelley, Christopher A Podlesnik, Alex Forton, and Brandy Hinkle.
• The Scott Center for Autism Treatment and the Florida Institute of Technology.
• J Appl Behav Anal. 2018 Oct 1; 51 (4): 854-865.

AbstractResurgence is the reemergence of a previously reinforced response that occurs after the elimination or reduction of reinforcement for an alternative response. Resurgence is problematic in the context of treatment because the reemergence of a previously reinforced destructive response could be detrimental to treatment gains. In the current translational study, we examined a modified resurgence procedure in which the alternative response was either present or absent during extinction. Four participants were exposed to three phases that consisted of (1) reinforcement of a target response, (2) extinction of the target response and differential reinforcement of an alternative response, and (3) extinction of both responses. Results for four out of five assessments showed greater resurgence when the alternative response was absent during Phase 3. Results suggest that more robust resurgence might occur if the alternative response is not available as opposed to the alternative response contacting extinction.© 2018 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.

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