Concurrent reinforcement schedules: behavior change and maintenance without extinction.

Hannah and team worked with three children with autism who hit, screamed, or ran off during work tasks. The kids' problem behavior was escape-maintained — they wanted out of the task.

The researchers set up two choices at once. Finish a small piece of work and get a fun break with favorite toys. Or skip the work and get no break, just keep sitting. No extinction was used; both choices stayed on the table.

All three kids stopped hitting or trying to leave. They started finishing the work. The gains stuck even when the team later thinned the breaks.

Problem behavior stayed gone. Task completion stayed high. No extinction bursts showed up because the kids never lost access to reinforcement.

Lalli et al. (1995) got the same end — no problem behavior and high work done — but they used functional communication training plus extinction and response chaining. Hannah et al. removed extinction entirely. The papers look opposite, yet both work; the difference is whether you let the child feel the 'no' or give them a richer 'yes' instead.

Donahoe et al. (2000) also kept problem behavior low, but they taught kids to wait for reinforcement while still using brief extinction. Hannah’s team skipped the wait training and the extinction. If waiting is hard for your learner, the 2002 method gives a cleaner path.

Galuska et al. (2006) later showed that after FCT you can run multiple schedules (long wait, short reinforcement) to keep newly taught mands from exploding. Hannah’s concurrent-schedule idea does the same ‘no-burst’ job at the very start, before any mand is even taught.

If you dread extinction bursts or have staff who can’t block every escape attempt, offer a competing reinforcer for task completion instead of taking escape away. Pick a break activity the child already loves, keep the work chunk tiny at first, and let the child choose. You get calm work time without the fallout of extinction.