Subtraction By Addition: Don't Miss Out On This Important Reflection
Nothing exists in a vacuum when it comes to human behavior.
Variables affect behavior, something akin to Newton's third law, which states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Behavior does not simply occur by chance, but is influenced by a variety of factors.
As BCBAs we know this. It’s not new to us by any means. But I sometimes wonder if we really know it.
Learners often engage in problem behaviors, such as stereotypy, aggression, or property destruction, to gain access to things they desire or to escape from things they want to avoid. Motivators may include access to electronic devices, attention from peers or instructors, or preferred toys and activities. They may also wish to escape from particular aversive situations or tasks.
When a learner doesn't know how to communicate effectively, the problem behavior is often a result of that inability to communicate their wants and needs. Through functional communication training (FCT), BCBAs will teach skills that enable them to express themselves in order to gain access to these things. This involves providing the necessary tools, such as spoken language or augmented communication, to gain access to desired items or to avoid undesired situations. Functional communication works well because it shows learners that communicating in a certain fashion will help them access or escape certain activities.
But, what happens when the learner knows how to fluently communicate their wants and continues to tantrum for that iPad? What happens when they know how to mand for escape, and do so frequently, but they are in a situation they can’t be removed from?
Over the years, I’ve ran into this issue countless times. The learner knows how to ask for the thing that they want...but they engage in high magnitude problem behavior when it's off limits. FCT has done its job: it’s eliminated problem behaviors due to a lack of communication.
Yet, the problem behavior continues.
I’ve seen BCBAs use several different strategies. One very common strategy—that normally does NOT work—is the one where the BCBA writes a "tolerating goal".
You know what these look like.
"Learner will tolerate the removal of a reinforcer for 30 seconds". In some variation, the BCBA seeks to increase the learners tolerance to having a preferred item or activity removed or denied. The item is removed.
The BCBA hopes that the learner eventually gets the hang of not tantruming when things suck for them.
It doesn’t work.
First, simply introducing an aversive situation over and over again and hoping the learner gets the hang of things comes with a great deal of baggage. None larger than the ethical concerns, of course—we can’t just introduce aversive events and hope the learner changed their mind on things. Second, we’re undoing the work of pairing us as preferred people, which ultimately damages their relationship with learning and us.
So how do we fix this? Well, as always, it starts with a shift in the way of we think about things.
In ABA, we adhere to this thing called the constructionist approach.
Pioneered by Israel Goldiamond, this approach emphasizes that behaviors don't exist in isolation. Instead of simply ceasing to reinforce problem behavior with the intent of decreasing the behavior, the BCBA also needs to adequately identify which skills need to be increased.
In fact, BCBAs need to look at the majority of what they do through this paradigm: A learner's struggles can almost always be traced back to a lack of good and useful skills (not an overabundance of problem behavior that needs to be magically erased). The constructionist approach demands that we...well...construct new skills--that we build new behaviors--not that we deconstruct others.
So, in other words, we don’t simply remove the iPad from a learner to increase their “tolerance” for an aversive event. But, instead, we need to teach them what to do when it happens.
Let’s pretend that you have some really awesome weekend plans. Maybe a friend or family member is visiting you this weekend. Someone you haven’t seen in a long time and someone that’s important to you. You have a jam packed weekend planned with this person. You’re pumped. Now, let’s say that something happens to that person that we’re all too familiar with. They call you on Friday morning on your way to work, and due to an unforeseen circumstance, they aren’t visiting.
How do you react?
First, you likely have an emotional response. You’re bummed. Maybe you’re really upset. Maybe you shed a few tears—you guys were going to have that much fun. But, you don’t have a knock down drag out tantrum. You don’t show up for work cussing out your coworkers and throwing furniture. You’re sad…but you manage your emotions and you hold it together.
What causes you to hold it together like that? Why are you not going absolutely ballistic? What is it that helps you cope over the course of the next eight hours?
Could it be that your parents implemented a “tolerating” procedure when you were growing up? Could it be that they repeatedly told you that friends and family were coming to visit and—in an act of total cruelty aimed at building your tolerance toward disappointment—they cancelled those visits at the last minute? Now you just hold it together better? After awhile you’ve grown numb to this disappointment? You’re just used to being disappointed like this?
It’s that you have a skill repertoire of behaviors that you choose to engage in that are adequate and appropriate enough and can get you through everything without losing it.
When aversive events like this strike, we tend to lean on a really important skill—the skill to engage in behaviors that help us access alternative reinforcement that is available to us. We browse our own personal database of alternative behaviors (aka coping skills) and choose a few to engage in. Sometimes this means taking deep breaths when things get stressful, or calling a loved one to vent to. Sometimes it simply means pivoting our focus to another preferred activity for the weekend.
There are several points to this:
It’s the behaviors we choose to engage in that get us through an aversive event without falling apart.
In doing so, there’s another even more important component skill at play—the ability to pivot, search, and select an alternative behavior.
For our learners, we need to teach and shape their ability to pivot and search for an alternative reinforcer when an aversive situation is present (as opposed to simply “hoping” they grow numb to the aversive stimulus).
This also implies that we have to increase the number of reinforcers (other toys, foods, people, activities, etc.) that they experience in general—working to make those experiences good ones!
In conclusion (for now), all of this isn’t always easy to grasp right away and it can be even harder to teach. Making the right clinical decision in these situations takes time and consideration. However, there is one crucial step that you can take right now. When problem behavior presents itself, start looking for the skills that are missing. Don’t simply look to extinguish, look to build. In the end, it might be addition that results in subtraction.
Need a few ideas on what those missing skills might look like? Tap into them HERE!
Have a clinical question and want to nerd out about it? Join our exclusive Facebook Group!