Behavior Reduction
Behavior reduction
Behavior reduction starts with assessment of function: attention, escape or avoidance, access to tangibles or activities, or automatic/sensory consequences. Build a competing-behavior plan: antecedent modifications (environment, scheduling, offering choices, priming), teaching a functionally equivalent replacement behavior, and consequence strategies. Extinction withholds the maintaining reinforcer; expect an extinction burst, variability, and spontaneous recovery, and plan safety. Differential reinforcement includes DRA (reinforce alternative behavior), DRI (reinforce incompatible behavior), DRO (reinforce absence of behavior during an interval), and DRL (reinforce lower rates). Response cost and time-out are restrictive; use only when authorized, monitored, and paired with reinforcement. Punishment may suppress behavior but does not teach replacement skills and can have side effects. Crisis procedures prioritize safety, least restrictive intervention, and documentation. Collect data on target and replacement behaviors to evaluate effects. Traps: using DRO when the goal is to teach a specific alternative; calling any reduction extinction when the reinforcer was not identified; ignoring the function; and implementing restrictive procedures without consent or oversight. Also distinguish DRI from DRA. Worked example: A learner screams to escape difficult work. The team reduces task difficulty briefly, teaches ‘break, please,’ and reinforces that request with a short break while screaming no longer produces escape. This is DRA with extinction of screaming. Rule of thumb: replace the function, not just the behavior.