3.1 Operant and Respondent Extinction Processes

Foundational Principles of Operant Extinction

Operant extinction is one of the foundational principles of behavior analysis. Technically defined, operant extinction is a procedure in which reinforcement of a previously reinforced behavior is discontinued; as a result, the future frequency of that behavior decreases in the presence of the relevant motivating operations and discriminative stimuli until it reaches its pre-reinforcement level or ceases entirely (Skinner, 1953; Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020).

In applied practice, extinction is not a monolithic procedure. Rather, it is a functional process defined entirely by the operant contingency maintaining the target behavior. If the maintaining reinforcer is not accurately identified through functional behavior assessment (FBA) and withheld with near-perfect procedural fidelity, extinction has not been implemented.

Essential Distinctions: What Extinction Is Not

To ensure conceptual systematicity, behavior analysts must distinguish extinction from clinically related but technically distinct behavioral operations:

1. Extinction vs. Forgetting: Forgetting describes the weakening or decay of a response over time when the individual has not had the opportunity to emit the behavior. In contrast, extinction occurs only when the behavior is emitted under relevant motivating operations and antecedent stimuli, but the functional consequence is withheld.
2. Extinction vs. Response Blocking: In response blocking, the practitioner physically prevents the response from completing its topographical execution (for example, placing a hand between a client's fist and their face). In sensory extinction, the motor response occurs freely, but the sensory consequence is masked or modified. Response blocking is a physical prevention procedure, not extinction.
3. Extinction vs. Noncontingent Reinforcement (NCR): NCR delivers functional reinforcers on a fixed-time (FT) or variable-time (VT) schedule independent of the client's behavior. NCR operates primarily as an antecedent establishing operation manipulation (an abolishing operation, or AO), diminishing motivation to emit the target behavior. Extinction operates directly on the response-consequence contingency by terminating the delivery of the consequence following the response.
4. Extinction vs. Negative Punishment: Negative punishment contingent upon a response removes a previously acquired appetitive stimulus (e.g., response cost) or removes the opportunity to earn reinforcement for a specific duration (e.g., time-out). Extinction simply discontinues the maintaining reinforcer that naturally or historically followed that specific response.

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Function-Matched Extinction Procedures

Because operant extinction requires withholding the maintaining reinforcer, the procedural implementation must directly match the behavioral function identified during assessment (Iwata et al., 1994). Implementing the incorrect extinction procedure not only fails to reduce the behavior but can also inadvertently strengthen alternative problem topographies.

1. Extinction of Positively Reinforced Behavior

• Attention Extinction (Social Positive Reinforcement): When functional assessment confirms that a behavior is maintained by attention (e.g., verbal reprimands, soothing statements, eye contact, reciprocal emotional reactions), extinction requires that social attention be withheld following the response. Staff must maintain a neutral facial expression, withhold eye contact, avoid physical touch (unless required for emergency safety), and refrain from delivering vocal reprimands or reminders.
• Tangible Extinction (Material Positive Reinforcement): When behavior is maintained by access to items, foods, or activities, extinction requires withholding the item or activity contingent upon the problem behavior. If a child engages in aggressive outbursts when a tablet is removed, tangible extinction requires that the tablet remains inaccessible while the aggression occurs, regardless of the duration or magnitude of the response.

2. Extinction of Negatively Reinforced Behavior (Escape Extinction)

When a behavior is maintained by social negative reinforcement (escape, avoidance, or delay of instructional demands, chores, or social interactions), extinction is implemented as escape extinction. Under escape extinction, demands, tasks, or instructional prompts are maintained and not terminated or postponed when problem behavior occurs.

In instructional settings, escape extinction often takes the form of non-removal of the task: instructions continue using guided compliance (e.g., three-step prompting hierarchy: verbal, gestural, physical) until the target response or task step is completed. Breaks, task removal, or transitions away from the work area are never permitted contingent on target problem behaviors. If a clinician permits a client to leave the work table or removes a difficult worksheet following a tantrum to "calm the client down," the clinician has delivered negative reinforcement, directly strengthening the escape-maintained repertoire.

3. Extinction of Automatically Reinforced Behavior (Sensory Extinction)

When a behavior occurs in the absence of social consequences and is maintained by direct sensory stimulation (automatic reinforcement), extinction requires modifying, masking, or neutralizing the sensory product generated by the motor movement (sensory extinction). The behavior is allowed to occur, but the reinforcing sensation is eliminated.

Examples include:

• Covering a laminate tabletop with soft carpeting to eliminate the auditory feedback of loud object-spinning or plate-banging.
• Placing a thin, breathable cotton glove or padded sleeve on an individual who engages in chronic finger-sucking or skin-picking, neutralizing the tactile sensation.
• Fitting a padded helmet so that head-tapping no longer produces its usual auditory and tactile stimulation. (By contrast, painting nails with a bitter-tasting substance adds an aversive stimulus, which is punishment, not extinction.)

Sensory extinction can be technically difficult to implement in community settings because many automatic consequences (such as vestibular sensation or proprioceptive feedback) cannot be readily disconnected from the motor act without physical restraint or response blocking.

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Extinction by Function Matrix

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Dynamic Phenomena and Unwanted Side Effects of Extinction

When an operant extinction contingency is applied, behavior does not instantly drop to zero. Instead, predictable behavioral phenomena emerge that require careful clinical anticipation and environmental management.

1. Extinction Burst

An extinction burst is an immediate, temporary increase in the frequency, rate, duration, and intensity of the target behavior immediately following the discontinuation of reinforcement. For example, when an elevator button fails to open the doors, a passenger typically presses the button multiple times in rapid succession, with significantly greater physical force, and holds it down for longer durations.

Extinction bursts do not occur in every case: Lerman and Iwata (1995) found them in a minority of extinction applications, and less often when extinction was combined with other procedures. A burst is consistent with the maintaining reinforcer having been withheld, but its absence does not mean extinction is failing. However, if staff members or caregivers succumb to the increased intensity and deliver reinforcement during the burst, they inadvertently reinforce high-intensity, high-magnitude problem behavior on an intermittent schedule, shaping more dangerous and treatment-resistant topographies.

2. Extinction-Induced Variability

During extinction, the organism emits novel, unreinforced topographies of behavior that were not previously observed (extinction-induced variability). If shouting does not access attention, the individual may begin stomping, throwing objects, or displaying novel verbalizations. While clinically challenging, behavioral variability is phylogenically and ontogenically adaptive: it provides the novel response variations required for differential reinforcement and shaping of desirable replacement behavior.

3. Extinction-Induced Aggression and Emotional Responding

The sudden omission of an expected appetitive reinforcer or the inability to terminate an aversive demand functions as an aversive event (often described conceptually as the "frustration effect"). Organisms frequently emit aggressive responses directed toward caregivers, peers, or physical objects in the immediate environment. Caregivers must be trained in safe positioning and protective procedures to ensure physical safety during this window.

4. Spontaneous Recovery

Spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of a previously extinguished behavior following an elapsed period of time (e.g., at the beginning of a new session, school day, or therapy block) without any reintroduction of reinforcement. Spontaneous recovery is not an indication of treatment failure; it represents a normal behavioral process. When spontaneous recovery occurs, clinicians must continue the extinction procedure without deviation. The recovered response will rapidly extinguish at a faster rate and lower intensity than the initial extinction cycle.

5. Resurgence

Resurgence occurs when a recently reinforced alternative behavior (such as a functional communication response or adaptive motor replacement taught via differential reinforcement) is placed on extinction or undergoes schedule thinning, and a previously extinguished target behavior re-emerges (Epstein, 1983; Lieving et al., 2004). For example, a student is taught to hand an "I need a break" picture card to escape math tasks, successfully extinguishing aggression. Later, during schedule thinning, the teacher delays granting breaks, placing the card exchange on temporary extinction. If the student immediately resumes physical aggression, resurgence has occurred. Resurgence highlights the critical necessity of gradual schedule thinning and robust reinforcement for replacement repertoires.

Factors Governing Resistance to Extinction

Resistance to extinction refers to the extent to which a behavior continues to be emitted after reinforcement has been discontinued. Key governing variables include:

• Intermittent Reinforcement History (PREE): Behaviors maintained on intermittent schedules of reinforcement—particularly variable ratio (VR) and variable interval (VI) schedules—exhibit far greater resistance to extinction than behaviors maintained on continuous reinforcement (CRF / FR1). This phenomenon is known as the partial reinforcement extinction effect (PREE).
• Establishing Operations (MO Strength): When the motivating operation for the reinforcer is strong (e.g., extended food deprivation or severe task aversion), the behavior demonstrates substantially greater resistance to extinction.
• Reinforcer Magnitude and Quality: A long history of receiving high-magnitude, high-preference reinforcers increases resistance to extinction.
• Number of Prior Extinction Exposures: Organisms with extensive histories of alternating reinforcement and extinction demonstrate faster discrimination, resulting in reduced resistance to extinction over successive exposures.

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Respondent (Classical) Extinction

While operant extinction involves terminating the contingency between a response and its consequence ($R \to S^R$), respondent extinction involves the Pavlovian conditioning paradigm ($S-S$ contingencies). In respondent extinction, a conditioned stimulus (CS) is repeatedly presented in the absence of the unconditioned stimulus (US) until the conditioned stimulus ceases to elicit the conditioned response (CR).

For example, if a child experienced a dog bite (US) accompanied by loud barking (CS), the barking alone came to elicit autonomic arousal, rapid heart rate, and peripheral vasoconstriction (CR). Respondent extinction occurs when the child is repeatedly exposed to the auditory stimulus of barking (CS) in safe, controlled environments without any physical attack or tissue injury (US). Over repeated presentations, the barking ceases to elicit the autonomic fear response.

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Clinical Best Practices and Ethical Contraindications

Best practice, consistent with the Ethics Code's requirement to prioritize positive reinforcement procedures (Standard 2.14), is that extinction should rarely, if ever, be implemented as an isolated intervention. Extinction should be paired with differential reinforcement procedures (such as Differential Reinforcement of Alternative Behavior [DRA], Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible Behavior [DRI], or Functional Communication Training [FCT]). Differential reinforcement provides an efficient, socially valid replacement topography that allows the individual to access the functional reinforcer appropriately.

Clear Contraindications to Extinction

1. Severe Self-Injurious Behavior (SIB) or Tissue-Damaging Aggression: If an individual engages in head-banging against concrete, eye-gouging, or severe biting, permitting an extinction burst to run its course poses unacceptable medical risks of permanent tissue injury or death. Extinction alone is ethically contraindicated.
2. Inability to Control the Reinforcer / Low Treatment Integrity: If a classroom teacher attempts attention extinction for a student whose disruptive shouting is reinforced by peer laughter, but peers cannot be prevented from laughing, the behavior will be placed on an unintended intermittent schedule. In such environments, extinction is contraindicated.
3. High-Risk Imitation: In group residential or classroom settings where other vulnerable clients are likely to imitate severe aggressive or self-injurious burst topographies, extinction must not be implemented without strict environmental containment.