A Comparison of Traditional Escape Extinction Procedures and the Seven Steps to Instructional Control
Traditional escape extinction procedures (i.e., not allowing escape from the teaching environment or demand) often evoke negative side effects (e.g., increased target behavior, property destruction, aggression, tantrum behaviors, and novel maladaptive behaviors) and may impede the development of the learner-clinician relationship (Schramm & Miller, 2014). This procedure is not universally effective and may be socially unacceptable to caregivers, teachers, and other providers. The Seven Steps to Earning Instructional Control offers clinicians an alternative treatment route to obtaining compliance instead of physically blocking or guiding a learner to engage in a task or remain in the teaching environment (Schramm & Miller, 2014). The Seven Steps to Instructional Control involves maintaining control over the learner’s reinforcers, obtaining compliance and building rapport, “saying what you mean, meaning what you say,” systematically increasing the variable ratio of reinforcement, providing reinforcement for following simple directions, identifying the learner’s priorities, and showing the learner that maladaptive behaviors do not yield any access to reinforcers. An overview of the behavior-analytic research on escape extinction procedures will serve as a foundational framework for implementation of the Seven Steps to Earning Instructional Control.