Assessing the combined effects of resurgence and reinstatement in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder
Relapse risk is highest when both reinforcer loss and reinforcer return occur—plan for both in treatment.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Liggett et al. (2018) tested three autistic children in a playroom. First they taught the kids to press a button to get a toy. Then they stopped giving the toy, so the button pressing died out. Finally they gave the toy back for free while the button still did nothing. They wanted to see if the old button pressing would come back stronger when both toy loss and toy return happened together.
This lab test mixed two relapse tricks: resurgence (toy taken away) and reinstatement (toy handed back).
What they found
When the toy returned for free, the kids pressed the button more than when only one trick was used. The two-hit combo made the old behavior surge higher and faster. The study calls this a negative outcome because bigger relapse is risky for treatment.
In short, combining loss plus return of the reinforcer doubled the relapse punch.
How this fits with other research
King et al. (2024) just reviewed similar two-hit relapse studies. Their big picture agrees: relapse grows when both context and reinforcement worsen at the same time. The 2018 data now give King’s team a rare clear example of that add-on effect.
Cohenour et al. (2018) looks like a contradiction. That same-year study saw only mild relapse when they simply changed the room lights after extinction. The difference is procedure: Cohenour tested one context switch, while Liggett stacked two reinforcement changes. Different paths, different relapse sizes.
Gotham et al. (2014) is the older cousin. They showed pure resurgence of mands with autistic kids but left out the reinstatement twist. Liggett’s combo design updates that line by showing reinstatement can piggy-back on resurgence and make the spike worse.
Why it matters
If you run FCT or any DRA program, expect the biggest relapse when two things go wrong at once: the new skill stops paying off and the old reinforcer pops back up. Build a plan for both. Keep alternative reinforcement strong, and guard against accidental free goodies that used to maintain problem behavior.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Resurgence and reinstatement are laboratory models of relapse following treatments for problem behavior that arrange alternative sources of reinforcement, such as differential reinforcement of alternative behavior and noncontingent reinforcement. Resurgence models the elimination or reduction of reinforcers during treatment and reinstatement models the re-presentation of reinforcers previously maintaining problem behavior. The present study examined individual and combined effects of resurgence and reinstatement in a translational model of treatment relapse with three children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. We first reinforced and then extinguished an arbitrary response while providing access to a preferred toy to model a version of noncontingent reinforcement with extinction. In the following phases, we examined resurgence by removing the toy, reinstatement by presenting the training reinforcer response-independently, and a combination of resurgence and reinstatement. Overall, relapse of target responding reliably exceeded functionally similar responses never reinforced in the experimental situation. Most importantly, relapse tended to be greater when combining resurgence and reinstatement than when assessing either alone. These findings support previous studies showing that combinations of operations can increase treatment relapse. This translational model arranging simulated problem behavior with arbitrary tasks provides a platform from which to thoroughly and systematically assess methods for understanding and improving behavioral treatments.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2018 · doi:10.1002/jeab.315