Enhancing the effects of extinction on attention-maintained behavior through noncontingent delivery of attention or stimuli identified via a competing stimulus assessment.
A quick toy assessment gives you a portable way to power-up extinction when attention feeds the problem and free attention is hard to give.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team tested three ways to stop destructive behavior that is kept going by adult attention.
One group got plain extinction: no eye contact, no words when the problem started.
The second group got the same ignore rule plus free attention every few minutes.
The third group got the ignore rule plus free toys picked from a quick competing-stimulus test.
They flipped the conditions fast so each participant tasted all three in one day.
What they found
Free toys plus extinction beat plain extinction.
Free attention plus extinction also beat plain extinction.
Both extras worked about the same, so toys can stand in when you can’t keep handing out attention.
How this fits with other research
Konstantareas et al. (1999) ran a near-copy of this design years earlier and saw the same win for noncontingent attention.
Migan-Gandonou Horr et al. (2021) later showed the payoff can last years—98 % drop still holding at 28 months.
Carter (2010) seems to disagree: for escape-maintained behavior, preferred edibles alone cut problem behavior without any extinction at all.
The clash fades once you see the function: attention cases still need the ignore rule; escape cases may not.
Lambert et al. (2024) adds another layer—lowering reinforcer value before you start cuts extinction bursts in adults, a nice partner to the toy-delivery trick shown here.
Why it matters
You now have two cheap ways to turbo-charge extinction when attention keeps the fire lit.
Run the five-minute competing-stimulus assessment, grab the top toy, and deliver it on a fixed schedule while you withhold attention for problem behavior.
If you can’t give attention because of classroom demands, the toy route gives the same boost.
Map the function first—escape cases may let you skip the ignore step entirely.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
UNLABELLED: Recent research has shown that the noncontingent delivery of competing stimuli can effectively reduce rates of destructive behavior maintained by social-positive reinforcement, even when the contingency for destructive behavior remains intact. It may be useful, therefore, to have a systematic means for predicting which reinforcers do and do not compete successfully with the reinforcer that is maintaining destructive behavior. In the present study, we conducted a brief competing stimulus assessment in which noncontingent access to a variety of tangible stimuli (one toy per trial) was superimposed on a fixed-ratio 1 schedule of attention for destructive behavior for individuals whose behavior was found to be reinforced by attention during a functional analysis. Tangible stimuli that resulted in the lowest rates of destructive behavior and highest percentages of engagement during the competing stimulus assessment were subsequently used in a noncontingent tangible items plus extinction treatment package and were compared to noncontingent attention plus extinction and extinction alone. Results indicated that both treatments resulted in greater reductions in the target behavior than did extinction alone and suggested that the competing stimulus assessment may be helpful in predicting stimuli that can enhance the effects of extinction when noncontingent attention is unavailable. DESCRIPTORS: Attention-maintained problem behavior, competing stimuli, extinction, functional analysis, noncontingent reinforcement
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 2004 · doi:10.1901/jaba.2004.37-171