The effects of competing reinforcement schedules on the acquisition of functional communication.

The team ran FCT with three children. They let problem behavior contact reinforcement on and off. Then they watched what happened to the new communication response.

Sessions alternated between rich and lean reinforcement. Sometimes the child got a toy for hitting. Sometimes the toy came only for asking nicely.

Two kids kept hitting even after they learned to ask. The hits stayed high until the team added extinction or response blocking.

Only the child who never got toys for hitting stopped quickly. Intermittent payoff was enough to keep the problem alive.

Hastings et al. (2001) showed the same thing one year earlier. They proved you must keep extinction while you thin the schedule.

Fuhrman et al. (2016) built on this idea. They used multiple schedules early to stop resurgence later.

Mitteer et al. (2022) counted the cost when we forget. In their review, 70 % of cases saw problem behavior return once reinforcement thinned.

Slaton et al. (2024) scaled the rule to whole school days. Crisis plans dropped to zero and stayed gone a full year.

If you let problem behavior hit pay-dirt even once in a while, FCT stalls. Keep extinction on from day one. When you must thin, use signaled multiple schedules so the child knows when asks work and when they do not.