The last episode we did was on functional communication training, and this one continues that trend, one of the differences is that this article focuses on the follow-up to the training. Specifically, these researchers focused on fading the schedule of reinforcement following successful FCT. Prior research has looked at different ways to do this, including competing stimulus, additional components, and slower fading using a multiple schedule. This article takes a naturalistic approach and examines what the effects of having naturally occurring stimuli in the environment has on the behavior. Similar to Wednesday’s article, this essentially is a question of reducing resurgence. The researchers were able to compare multiple different conditions and effectively fade the schedule with no increase in problem behavior.

Simmons, C. A., Salvatore, G. L., & Zangrillo, A. N. (2022). Efficiency and preference for alternative activities during schedule thinning with functional communication training. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 55(1), 101-120. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.886