Assessment of children's and caregivers' preferences for treatments for escape‐maintained problem behavior
Kids want DNRA, caregivers want escape extinction—chain the two and both sides stay on board.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Owen and team asked kids and caregivers which escape plan they liked best.
They tested five plans: DNRA, NCE, escape extinction, multiple schedule, and chained schedule.
An alternating-treatments design let each child sample every plan and then pick a favorite.
What they found
Children almost always chose DNRA.
Caregivers usually chose escape extinction.
A chained schedule blended both views and kept everyone happy.
How this fits with other research
Bigby et al. (2009) saw the same child choice pattern with social reinforcers: kids wanted to earn it, not get it free.
Briere et al. (2025) showed you can skip escape extinction and still win cooperation; Owen adds that skipping it also wins child approval.
Cividini-Motta et al. (2013) compared DR variants and found one size does not fit all; Owen echoes this by showing caregiver and child may need different sizes in one chained plan.
Festinger et al. (1996) fixed multiply-controlled escape without extinction; Owen gives a fresh recipe—chain the plans—when stakeholders disagree.
Why it matters
You now have data that says start with DNRA for the child, but be ready to chain in caregiver-preferred extinction later.
This cuts conflict, keeps treatment strong, and takes five minutes to set up in any session.
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Join Free →Offer the child a DNRA option first, then tell the caregiver you will add brief escape-extinction steps in a chained schedule if problem behavior returns.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study assessed children's and caregivers' preferences for various arrangements of negative reinforcement, including differential negative reinforcement of an alternative behavior (DNRA), noncontingent escape (NCE), and escape extinction. In the first treatment comparison, the DNRA and NCE treatments similarly decreased problem behavior, but all 3 children preferred DNRA. By contrast, 3 of 4 caregivers preferred escape extinction, likely due to increased compliance in this condition. In a second treatment comparision with 1 child, a multiple schedule and then a chained schedule were introduced to increase the practically of the initial DNRA treatment. The child continued to prefer the treatment with contingent reinforcement in both comparisons, and his caregivers preferred the chained schedule. Results further support the selection of treatments that include contingent reinforcement, and the evaluation serves as a model for progressing through treatment options until child and caregiver preferences align.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2021 · doi:10.1002/jaba.817