RESURGENCE OF MANDS FOLLOWING FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING

Abstract

 Experimental conditions similar to those described by Lieving and Lattal (2003) were used within two experiments to evaluate the resurgence of mands with humans. Two mands from the same operant class were trained with three participants with developmental disabilities during Experiment 1 and with two participants with developmental disabilities and a history of problem behavior during Experiment 2. The two mands were then placed on extinction. Both persisted, but showed different response strength during extinction. The mand with the weaker response strength was targeted for additional functional communication training and the alternative mand was placed on extinction. Following steady levels of occurrence of the targeted mand and no occurrences of the alternative mand, both mands were placed on extinction again. At least one instance of resurgence of the alternative mand occurred with every participant and resurgence of problem behavior occurred for both participants during Experiment 2.