Distribution of follow‐up sessions influences determinations of skill maintenance
Just having a follow-up plan beats none__equal or progressive spacing both keep skills alive.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team taught 12 college students a simple skill on Zoom.
Then they tested three ways to check if the skill stuck.
One group got no follow-ups.
Another got sessions spaced evenly.
The last got sessions that grew farther apart over time.
What they found
Any planned follow-up beat none at all.
Equal spacing and progressive spacing worked about the same.
A few students did a little better with one style, but most did not care.
How this fits with other research
Killeen (2023) says richer schedules build stronger habits.
This study shows the habit stays even when the schedule thins out.
Burack et al. (2004) used modeling to teach schedule tracking.
Mutchler et al. (2025.) show the tracking lasts if you keep any touch-points.no need for daily checks.
Pilgrim et al. (2000) saw pigeons resist change under steady schedules.
Here, humans also kept the skill under both steady and fading schedules.
Why it matters
You can stop worrying about perfect spacing.
Pick equal or progressive follow-ups__both protect the skill.
The key is to schedule something, even if it is light and far apart.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Maintenance refers to the persistence of behavior change over time after some or all instruction has been discontinued. The distribution of follow‐up sessions can affect the frequency of practice opportunities in the absence of ongoing instruction and determinations of maintenance based on how often performance is assessed. An adapted alternating‐treatments design was used to evaluate the frequency and schedule of follow‐up session distribution on the maintenance of an arbitrary labeling task taught to nine college‐aged students. Following acquisition, the participants completed virtual follow‐up sessions across at least 30 days. The follow‐up session distributions were equally effective with respect to maintenance for six participants. The progressively increasing distribution was associated with higher maintenance for two participants, and the equal distribution was associated with higher maintenance for one participant. Across all participants, some distribution of opportunities to practice the skill was associated with higher levels of maintenance relative to the control.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2025 · doi:10.1002/jaba.70022