Parent Support University Week 6

May 6, 2020

By AnswersNow

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Parent testimonial

Parent Support University Week 6

Extinction - Parent Support University with AnswersNow - YouTube

Extinction - Parent Support University with AnswersNow

Transcript

Speaker 1: Hey, AnswersNow. Friends and family. I am Adam Dreyfus. I'm the chief science officer of AnswersNow. What is AnswersNow? Well, it's a mobile platform that connects you directly to your own BCBA, a board certified behavior analyst. You can just go to your App store. I've got an iPhone, so I can go to the App store. You can go to Google Play, type in AnswersNow, all one word, and you'll have the app. You'll be able to connect directly with your own clinician.

We've got blogs, we've got all kinds of stuff. So either download the app off of your phone. AnswersNow, all one word you'll see a little purple butterfly or go to getanswersnow.com. That's our desktop platform. We've been having a weekly tip kind of video about trying to teach parents how does a BCBA think because we hear all the time from parents is, man, I wish I knew what you guys knew.

What we've done is I call it the pile of information. The pile of information that most board certified behavior analysts have in their head has been compiled in a lot of different places. One of my favorite places is the National Professional Development Center. They took all of the evidence based practices and put training modules together.

Today we're gonna be talking about extinction. Extinction is a powerful concept related to behavior. It refers to the phenomenon when a behavior isn't getting reinforced anymore.

Extinction is the process by which behaviors kind of go away. The core idea is that people behave a certain way because it's being reinforced. You can think of good examples like going to the gym—people go to the gym because they feel better, which is reinforcing.

When we think of extinction, we’re usually thinking of how do we turn off a behavior that we don’t want to see? How do we extinguish it or place it on extinction? Placing something on extinction means depriving it of reinforcement.

Say you've got a behavior like slapping yourself in the face. That can mean a lot of different things: someone wants you to leave them alone, someone wants your attention, or they want something.

To place face slapping on extinction, you need to know what's feeding it. Behavioral analysts determine the motivation behind the behaviors. It's important that you not only turn off the undesired behavior but also turn on a replacement behavior.

For example, if a child slaps themselves for attention, ignoring that behavior won't resolve the need for attention; they may find another way to elicit it.

You can implement differential reinforcement. For instance, give the child attention more frequently but ensure that it is focused on positive behavior rather than the problematic one.

Extinction can be a powerful tool in behavior modification, but it needs to be used carefully to ensure you substitute with a replacement behavior for the one you're trying to extinguish.

You also want to follow up with teaching ways of obtaining the desired attention appropriately.

Additional Information

If you need help, sign up at getanswersnow.com or download the AnswersNow app for professional assistance.

You can find more information about evidence-based practices at the National Professional Development Center.