Renewed behavior produced by context change and its implications for treatment maintenance: A review

Abstract

Behavioral treatment gains established in one setting do not always maintain in other settings. The present review examines the relevance of basic and translational research to understanding failures to maintain treatment gains across settings. Specifically, studies of the renewal effect examine how transitioning away from a treatment setting could evoke a return of undesirable behavior, rather than newly trained appropriate behavior. Studies of renewal typically arrange three phases, with a response trained and reinforced under a particular set of contextual stimuli in the first phase. Next, that response is extinguished, often under a different set of contextual stimuli. Finally, that response returns despite extinction remaining in effect upon returning to the original training context or transitioning to a novel context. Thus, removing the extinction context is sufficient to produce a recurrence of the response. The findings suggest treatment effects can become specific to the context in which the treatment was delivered. This literature offers promising methods for systematically assessing the factors contributing to treatment maintenance and improving generalization of treatment gains across contexts. Therefore, the present review suggests basic and translational research on renewal provides an empirical literature to bring greater conceptual systematization to understanding generalization and maintenance of behavioral treatment.

An evaluation of resurgence following functional communication training conducted in alternative antecedent contexts via telehealth

“…Mace et al proposed training appropriate behaviors initially in an alternative context with no reinforcement history for problem behavior. We also incorporated stimulus generalization strategies based on Stokes and Baer (1977) to reduce the likelihood that problem behavior would recur when FCT was implemented in the treatment context (see also Podlesnik et al, 2017a for a related discussion). We also incorporated stimulus generalization strategies based on Stokes and Baer (1977) to reduce the likelihood that problem behavior would recur when FCT was implemented in the treatment context (see also Podlesnik et al, 2017a for a related discussion).…”

Mitigating resurgence of destructive behavior using the discriminative stimuli of a multiple schedule

“…It is worth noting that we made manipulations similar to those used in studies evaluating extinction cues to decrease operant renewal, or the relapse of previously eliminated responding following a change in context (Podlesnik, Kelley, Jimenez-Gomez, & Bouton, 2017). For example, Nieto, Uengoer, and Bernal-Gamboa (2017) found that the presence of a cue (i.e., tone) from a phase of extinction for lever pressing decreased relapse during a subsequent renewal test.…”

Resurgence of previously taught academic responses

“…This interaction between resurgence and renewal has been investigated across species and renewal procedures (Kincaid, Lattal, & Spence, 2015;Liggett, Nastri, & Podlesnik, 2018;Podlesnik, Kelley, Jimenez-Gomez, & Bouton, 2017;Podlesnik et al, 2019;Sweeney & Shahan, 2015;Trask & Bouton, 2016). For example, to investigate superresurgence during ABA renewal, a particular stimulus (stimulus A) might be present during the reinforcement of the target response, a distinct stimulus (stimulus B) might be present during the reinforcement of the alternative response, and stimulus A might be present during extinction.…”