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Overcorrection

Description of the Strategy

Overcorrection is a procedure developed by Richard Foxx and Nathan Azrin for the treatment of aggressive, disruptive, and self-stimulatory behavior exhibited by children and adults with mental retardation and autism. Since its development in the early 1970s, overcorrection has been used effectively for numerous problem behaviors exhibited by children with and without disabilities and for a variety of problem behaviors exhibited by adults with disabilities. In the overcorrection procedure, the caregiver (parent, teacher, staff person) requires the child to engage in an effortful activity for a specified period of time (e.g., 5–20 minutes) contingent on the occurrence of the problem behavior. In most cases, the caregiver uses physical guidance to get the child to engage in the effortful activity. For example, in an early study by Foxx and Azrin, overcorrection was used to decrease self-stimulatory behaviors exhibited by children with mental retardation. When a child engaged in a self-stimulatory behavior, a staff member required the child to hold his or her hands for 15 seconds in each of five positions (together, above the head, straight out, behind the back, and into pockets). The child had to continue engaging in the series of hand movements for 5 minutes each time self-stimulatory behavior occurred.

Overcorrection decreases problem behavior through a positive punishment process. The procedure functions as a form of punishment by the application of aversive activities. Because the child has to engage in an aversive activity contingent on the occurrence of the problem behavior, the problem behavior is less likely to occur again in the future. Time-out from positive reinforcement (a negative punishment procedure) is also involved in overcorrection as the child is removed from reinforcing activities for an extended period of time while engaging in the overcorrection activities. Because the child loses the opportunity to engage in reinforcing activities contingent on the occurrence of the problem behavior, the problem behavior is less likely to occur in the future.

There are two forms of overcorrection involving two types of effortful activities, restitution and positive practice. Restitution and positive practice may be used individually or in combination as a consequence for a problem behavior.

Restitution

In the restitution procedure, the child has to correct the environmental disruption or damage caused by the problem behavior and restore the environment to an improved state. For example, if a child engages in tantrum behavior and throws a toy, the parent would require the child to pick up the toy and to pick up other toys in the room as well. Restitution is considered over correction because the corrective action goes beyond the disruption or damage caused by the problem behavior. Consider another example of a child who colors on a wall in the kitchen when he or she is angry at a parent. To implement the restitution procedure, the parent would have the child wash the wall on which he or she colored and wash an additional wall as well.

Positive Practice

In the positive practice procedure, the child has to engage in a correct form of relevant behavior contingent on the occurrence of the problem behavior and repeat the correct behavior a number of times for an extended period of time. For example, if a student makes careless errors on spelling tests, the teacher could implement positive practice by having the child write each misspelled word on a test 20 times. The positive practice procedure would make the child less likely to make careless errors. Consider another example of a 5-year-old child who wets his pants while playing in the backyard. Once the child had cleaned up and changed his clothes, the parents would implement positive practice by requiring the child to practice walking from the backyard to the toilet and standing in front of the toilet as if to urinate in the toilet. The child would have to repeat this correct behavior a number of times (e.g., 10–15 times) over a period of 10 to 15 minutes. In this case, the parents could also implement restitution along with positive practice. As soon as the parent becomes aware that the child has urinated in his clothes, the parent would require the child to go to the bathroom, undress, bathe himself, put on clean clothes, take his wet clothes to the laundry room, put the clothes in the washer, and clean up any mess caused by wetting his pants.

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