Maintenance

Description of the Strategy

Since the 1960s, the disciplines of applied behavior analysis (formerly known as behavior modification) and behavior therapy have developed a number of highly effective behavior-change strategies. Many of these strategies, most of which are based on the principles of operant or respondent conditioning, have been effectively disseminated such that they are now readily available to clinicians. A fundamental aspect of behavioral treatment, and perhaps its most important feature, is the maintenance of behavior change. Maintenance is defined as the continued performance of an appropriate target behavior (e.g., communication) or the continued reduction of a problem behavior (e.g., aggression) after treatment has been withdrawn. Maintenance can also be conceptualized as behavior that is resistant to extinction and thereby more likely ...