Effects of intermittent punishment on self-injurious behavior: an evaluation of schedule thinning.
You can thin punishment schedules for SIB, but only half of clients maintained suppression when moving from continuous to FI 120-300 s time-out or restraint.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team worked with four adults with intellectual disability who hit or bit themselves.
They first stopped every self-injury with immediate time-out or brief restraint.
Next they stretched the punishment schedule, moving from every response to fixed-interval 120-300 s.
The goal was to keep behavior low while giving fewer punishments.
What they found
Two people kept low self-injury after the stretch.
The other two lost suppression once the punishment came only every few minutes.
Intermittent punishment alone was not enough for half the group.
How this fits with other research
Reid et al. (1999) extends this work. They added toys and praise while giving mild reprimands. All four clients stayed safe. The 1997 study punished only; the 1999 study shows you should pair even mild punishment with reinforcement.
Macht (1971) is a predecessor. That lab study first mapped how fixed-interval punishment weakens suppression. Lord et al. (1997) moved the same schedule from rats to people with self-injury.
Nist et al. (2021) is methodologically similar. They thinned reinforcement instead of punishment and saw resurgence. Both papers warn that thinning any consequence can bring behavior back.
Why it matters
If you use punishment for self-injury, plan to add reinforcement for a safe alternative. Thin the schedule only if suppression holds at each step. Drop the plan quickly for clients who lose ground; they may need denser consequences or a different treatment package.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Although the use of punishment often raises ethical issues, such procedures may be needed when the reinforcers that maintain behavior cannot be identified or controlled, or when competing reinforcers cannot be found. Results of several studies on the effects of intermittent schedules of punishment suggest that therapists must use fairly rich schedules of punishment to suppress problem behavior. However, residential caretakers, teachers, and parents often have difficulty implementing programs that require constant monitoring of the client's behavior. In this study, we examined the feasibility of gradually thinning the delivery of punishment from a continuous schedule to an intermittent schedule during the course of treatment for self-injurious behavior (SIB). Results of functional analyses for 5 individuals who had been diagnosed with profound mental retardation indicated that their SIB was not maintained by social consequences. Treatment with continuous schedules of time-out (for 1 participant) or contingent restraint (for the other 4 participants) produced substantial reductions in SIB. When they were exposed to intermittent schedules of punishment (fixed-interval [FI] 120 s or FI 300 s), SIB for all but 1 of the participants increased to levels similar to those observed during baseline. For these 4 participants, the schedule of punishment was gradually thinned from continuous to FI 120 s or FI 300 s. For 2 participants, SIB remained low across the schedule changes, demonstrating the utility of thinning from continuous to intermittent schedules of punishment. Results for the other 2 participants showed that intermittent punishment was ineffective, despite repeated attempts to thin the schedule.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1997 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1997.30-187