Recruiting

Motivational RefinementsMotivational Refinements for Facilitating Reinforcement Schedule Thinning

Sponsor:

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Code:

NCT05790668

Conditions

Decreasing Destructive Behavior

Increasing Functional Communicative Behavior

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 3 - 17

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Interventions

Traditional Schedule Thinning

PIA-Informed Schedule Thinning

PIA-Informed Schedule Thinning with Competing Stimuli

Study Details

Brief summary:

Destructive behavior represents a comorbid condition of developmental disability for which risk increases with intellectual disability severity, communication deficits, and co-occurring autism spectrum disorder. Destructive behavior, such as self-injurious behavior and aggression, causes harm to the child and others and increases the risk for institutionalization, social isolation, physical restraint, medication overuse, and abuse. Clinicians have used functional analyses to identify the variables that reinforce destructive behavior and to develop effective, function-based treatments. Functional communication training (FCT) is an empirically supported, function-based treatment that decreases destructive behavior. Using FCT, the clinician teaches the child to use a functional communication response (FCR) to request the reinforcer maintaining destructive behavior, while placing destructive behavior on extinction. For example, if functional analysis results showed that attention reinforced destructive behavior, the clinician would provide attention when the child used the FCR ("Play with me, please") and would not provide attention for destructive behavior. Two limitations of FCT are that (a) schedules of reinforcement maintaining the FCR must often be thinned gradually to levels that are practical for caregivers to implement consistently in the home and in the community, and (b) this necessary process of reinforcement schedule thinning regularly causes destructive behavior to increase following initially effective treatment, a form of treatment relapse called resurgence. The current project aims to improve these limitations of FCT by (a) hastening the process of reinforcement schedule thinning by removing unnecessary schedule-thinning steps using the results of a progressive interval assessment and (b) mitigating the resurgence of destructive behavior by providing stimuli that highly compete with the reinforcer maintaining destructive behavior. The investigators will conduct a randomized clinical trial to evaluate the extent to which these two promising refinements to FCT improve the process of reinforcement schedule thinning, and an exploratory experiment will examine the interactive effects of these two approaches. This novel project has the potential to substantially improve standards of care guiding the treatment of severe destructive behavior and to improve the long-term outcomes for children and families afflicted by these debilitating behavior disorders.

Conditions

Decreasing Destructive Behavior

Increasing Functional Communicative Behavior

Study ID

NCT05790668

Start date

Oct 24, 2023

Status verified date

Aug, 2026

Completion date

Aug 31, 2028

Anticipated

Primary completion date

May 31, 2028

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 3 - 17

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

boys and girls from ages 3 to 17
destructive behavior that occurs at least 10 times a day, despite previous treatment
destructive behavior reinforced by social consequences
stable protective supports for self-injurious behavior (e.g., helmet) with no anticipated changes during enrollment
on a stable psychoactive drug regimen for at least 10 half-lives per drug or drug free
stable educational plan and placement with no anticipated changes during the child's treatment

Exclusion Criteria:

patients who do not meet the inclusion criteria
patients currently receiving 15 or more hours per week of treatment for their destructive behavior
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-5 diagnosis of Rett syndrome or other degenerative conditions (e.g., inborn error of metabolism)
a comorbid health condition or major mental disorder that would interfere with study participation
occurrence of self-injury during study assessments that presents a risk of serious or permanent harm (e.g., detached retinas) based on routine clinical-risk assessment
patients requiring changes to protective supports for self-injury or drug treatment, but investigators will invite these patients to participate when protective supports and drug regimen are stable

Study Design

Enrollment

30 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Treatment

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Evaluation of PIA-Informed Schedule Thinning

The goal of Arm 1 will be to will extend pilot work on the utility of individualizing the starting point for reinforcement schedule thinning based on the results of a progressive-interval assessement (PIA). The investigators will do so by conducting reinforcement schedule thinning using a multielement design in two separate contexts, one informed by the results of a PIA and another not so informed. The criteria for schedule thinning will be identical across both conditions but will be applied to each condition independently. Investigators will determine the efficiency of schedule thinning, reductions of destructive behavior, and durability of functional communication responses across the two conditions.

experimental: Evaluation of Competing Items

The goal of Arm 2 will be to evaluate the utility of competing items (e.g., alternative reinforcement or activities) during schedule thinning. Both conditions will be informed by the PIA, similar to the experimental condition in Arm 1. PIA-informed schedule thinning with competing stimuli will be identical to that of PIA-informed schedule thinning, except (a) the therapist will provide continuous access to the highly competing stimulus identified by that participant's competing stimulus assessment (e.g., providing attention while an iPad is unavailable, playing music while working), and (b) it will occur in the other context (e.g., the yellow context). Investigators will determine the efficiency of schedule thinning, reductions of destructive behavior, the durability of functional communication responses across the two conditions, and resurgence of destructive behavior during prolonged periods of extinction.

experimental: Effects of Competing Items on PIA Outcomes

The goal of Arm 3 will be to examine potential interaction effects between the above two experimental arms by conducting PIAs with no, low, moderate, and high competing stimuli to determine the schedule duration at which schedule thinning should commence with each competing stimulus. All participants will complete this arm prior to enrollment in Arms 1 or 2. The investigators will randomize the sequence of each of the four PIAs (PIA with no competing stimuli, PIA with low competing stimuli, PIA with moderately competing stimuli, PIA with highly competing stimuli) across participants.

Interventions

Traditional Schedule Thinning

During traditional schedule thinning during functional communication training with discriminative stimuli (e.g., multiple schedules, chained schedules), practitioners correlate a unique stimulus with reinforcement (e.g., a green card) and another for extinction (e.g., a red card). When the reinforcement and extinction stimuli are presented, the child's communication responses are honored or not honored, respectively. Behavior analysts begin with a brief period of extinction (e.g., 2 s) and gradually increase that duration as the child displays low levels of destructive behavior and high levels of discriminated communication responses (i.e., communication requests during reinforcement components only) until the child reaches a terminal schedule informed by caregiver/child preference (e.g., 2.5-min reinforcement, 10-min extinction). Typically, the starting extinction period is brief and arbitrarily selected and there are no competing stimuli programmed.

PIA-Informed Schedule Thinning

This intervention involves the same general components as Traditional Schedule Thinning. However, rather than starting with an arbitrary duration of the extinction component (e.g., 2 s), the behavior analyst empirically derives the starting point based on a progressive-interval assessment (PIA). The PIA involves rapidly increasing the duration of the extinction component within a single session to determine the leanest schedule of reinforcement that does not produce untoward effects. Behavior analysts will progress through the following extinction durations within a single session: 3 s, 11 s , 21 s, 34 s, 50 s, 70 s, 95 s, 126 s, 164 s, 213 s, and 270 s. For example, if the participant displays destructive behavior at 164 s consistently, but not at 126 s, the experimenters will start schedule thinning with a 126-s extinction component. There will be no competing stimuli programmed in this intervention.

PIA-Informed Schedule Thinning with Competing Stimuli

This intervention is identical to PIA-Informed Schedule Thinning except that behavior analysts will program competing activities (e.g., alternative activities like toys or therapist attention) during extinction components. The competing stimuli will be derived from a competing stimulus assessment in which destructive behavior is analyzed across various conditions in which only the activity is manipulated during the extinction period (e.g., a session with action figures during extinction, a session with tablet during extinction). The items that produce the highest levels of child engagement and lowest levels of destructive behavior are known as highly competing items.

Primary outcome measure

Destructive behavior (responses per minute) [ Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 4 weeks. ]
Discriminated functional communication responses (percentage) [ Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 4 weeks. ]
Efficiency of schedule thinning [ Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 4 weeks. ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Brian D Greer, Ph.D.

8488008505 brian.greer@rutgers.edu

Daniel R Mitteer, Ph.D.

8488008506 daniel.mitteer@rutgers.edu

Locations

Douglass Developmental Disabilities Center

Recruiting

New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States, 08901

Contacts

Robert LaRue, Ph.D.

8489324500 larue@rutgers.edu

Principal Investigator:

Robert LaRue, Ph.D.

Rutgers University Center for Autism Research, Education, and Services

Recruiting

Somerset, New Jersey, United States, 08873

Contacts

Brian D Greer, Ph.D.

8488008505 brian.greer@rutgers.edu

Daniel R Mitteer, Ph.D.

8488008506 daniel.mitteer@rutgers.edu

Principal Investigator:

Brian D Greer, Ph.D.

More Information

Sponsor

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Last update posted

Aug 12, 2026

Last verified

Aug, 2026

Keywords

functional communication training
reinforcement schedule thinning
resurgence
treatment relapse

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey on 2026-08-12.