GS4 Student Scholars Symposium

Procedural extinction in the context of behavioral interventions directly refers to the reduction of problematic behavior. This is achieved by withholding or stopping the reinforcement that the participant’s problem behavior is contingent upon (Iwata et al., 1994). Although there has been research evaluating procedural extinction’s effectiveness and ways to mitigate its known side effects, there is limited research on the social validity of the intervention and how this impacts its application. In the current study, we inquired about clinicians’ experience, perception, and application of extinction across behavioral health settings. This was done initially by replicating and extending survey instruments and procedures to accurately gather data from responding clinicians (Roscoe et al.). In addition, we asked the survey pool and a wider audience to participate in a choice-based task to determine the likelihood of selecting an extinction behavior reduction intervention versus a non-extinction-based reduction intervention with delays to efficacy.