Functional Communication Training (FCT) involves arranging extinction for problem behavior and reinforcement for a more desirable, functionally equivalent, communicative response (FCR). Although effective under ideal arrangements, the introduction of delays to reinforcement following the FCR can result in increased problem behavior. Austin and Tiger (2015) showed that for individuals whose problem behavior was sensitive to multiple sources of reinforcement, providing access to alternative, functional reinforcers during delays mitigated this increase in problem behavior during delay fading. The current study replicated the procedures of Austin and Tiger with 2 individuals displaying multiply controlled problem behavior. Providing alternative functional reinforcers reduced problem behavior during 10-min delays for both participants without requiring delay fading.

Children of both typical and atypical cognitive development tend to prefer contexts in which their behavior results in a choice of reinforcers rather than a single reinforcer, even when the reinforcer accessed is identical across conditions. The origin of this preference has been attributed speculatively to behavioral histories in which choice making tends to be associated with differentially beneficial outcomes. Few studies have evaluated this claim, and those that have, have yielded mixed results. We provided five preschool‐aged children experiences in which choice‐making and no‐choice contexts were differentially associated with higher preference and larger magnitude reinforcers, and we assessed changes in their preference for choice and no‐choice contexts in which outcomes were equated. These conditioning experiences resulted in consistent and replicable shifts in child preference, indicating that preference for choice is malleable through experience.

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