A Systematic Review of Treatment Maintenance Strategies in Token Economies: Implications for Contingency Management
Thin token pay and add praise plus self-monitoring from the start so skills survive after the store shuts.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Regnier and team read every token-economy paper they could find. They pulled 45 studies that tracked what happened after the tokens stopped.
They looked for tricks that kept the new skills alive—things like thinning the pay rate, adding praise, or teaching kids to count their own behavior.
What they found
Two moves stood out. First, pay tokens less often while you pile on social praise. Second, hand the job to the learner with self-monitoring sheets or checklists.
When programs used both moves, the gains stuck around longest after the store closed for good.
How this fits with other research
Cariveau et al. (2017) showed the same idea in a classroom. They kept kids working hard by fading a group reward while leaving the same worksheets on the desks—common stimuli that reminded them to work.
Justus et al. (2023) gave teachers a $3 hand counter so they could track their own praise. The tool kept praise high after coaches left, matching the review’s call for self-management.
Russell et al. (2018) looked tough to square at first. They found tokens stayed powerful even when kids had free candy before class—an apparent contradiction. The fix is simple: Russell tested whether tokens still worked as reinforcers, while Regnier asked how to keep behavior going after you remove tokens. Different questions, no fight.
Why it matters
You can build a fade-out plan right into your token board. Start thinning the ratio on day one and pair every token with real praise. Add a student checklist or teacher clicker so the learner owns the count. When the day comes to close the store, the behavior keeps running on praise and self-monitoring—no more plastic chips needed.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Contingency management (CM) interventions are based on operant principles and are effective in promoting health behaviors. Despite their success, a common criticism of CM is that its effects to not persist after the intervention is withdrawn. Many CM studies evaluate posttreatment effects, but few investigate procedures for promoting maintenance. Token economy interventions and CM interventions are procedurally and conceptually similar. The token economy literature includes many studies in which procedures for promoting postintervention maintenance are evaluated. A systematic literature review was conducted to synthesize the literature on treatment maintenance in token economies. Search procedures yielded 697 articles, and application of inclusion/exclusion criteria resulted in 37 articles for review. The most successful strategy is to combine procedures. In most cases, thinning or fading was combined with programmed transfer of control via social reinforcement or self-management. Social reinforcement and self-monitoring procedures appear to be especially important, and were included in 70% of studies involving combined approaches. Thus, our primary recommendation is to incorporate multiple maintenance strategies, at least one of which should facilitate transfer of control of the target behavior to other reinforcers. In addition, graded removal of the intervention, which has also been evaluated to a limited extent in CM, is a reasonable candidate for further development and evaluation. Direct comparisons of maintenance procedures are lacking, and should be considered a research priority in both domains. Researchers and clinicians interested in either type of intervention will likely benefit from ongoing attention to developments in both areas.
Perspectives on Behavior Science, 2022 · doi:10.1007/s40614-022-00358-7