B-15: Identify examples of response maintenance ©
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Target Items: Response Maintenance
Maintenance
Definition: Following the removal of an intervention, the extent to which a response remains in an individual’s repertoire over time.
Example in everyday context: A person learns how to ride their bike in their childhood and continue to maintain that skill into adulthood even though they may have not ridden a bike in many years.
Example in clinical context: A client is taught to read using evidence based interventions, and then maintains the ability to read over many years.
Example in supervision/consultation context: A supervisor teaches a group of supervisees how to use Habit Reversal Training/Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics. The supervisor teaches discrimination between examples and non-examples of each component skill, and supervisees learn to generalize the intervention by practicing across multiple individuals. Months later, the supervisor observes the supervisees demonstrating use of the intervention. The extent to which the skills are being done as taught is the extent to which those skills maintained.
Why it matters: Maintenance of learned skills promotes further learning opportunities since basic skills can be taught, mastered and built upon. It is absolutely crucial to consider naturally occurring reinforcement in the client’s goal environment when programming, since ultimately, we aim for the client’s behavior to maintain over time while relying as much as possible on naturally occurring forms of reinforcement.