Assess Resurgence After Alternative Reinforcement Worsens

To assess resurgence after alternative reinforcement worsens, document Cora's prior target response and its reinforcement history, the later alternative response and its reinforcement, the exact worsening event, and recurrence of the prior response. Add integrity, access, health, context, safety, direct experience, and competing explanations. Separate resurgence from an extinction burst, renewal, treatment drift, system failure, and ordinary variability.

Confirm the required sequence

Document earlier reinforcement for the target response, later reinforcement for the alternative, worsening or loss of that alternative reinforcement, and recurrence of the earlier response. Keep missing links explicit.

Define the worsening event

Record whether Cora encountered delay, thinning, lower quality, reduced magnitude, missed delivery, unavailable partners, context change, or a system failure. These events can support different interpretations.

Compare target and alternative responses

Use shared opportunity windows when appropriate and separate each response, partner action, prompt, consequence, invalid event, and withdrawal. Report raw counts beside rates.

Differentiate nearby explanations

An extinction burst concerns an initial increase after extinction begins. Renewal concerns context change. Drift, missing access, health, and ordinary variation can resemble relapse without the required resurgence history.

Use this sequence to assess resurgence

Map Cora's histories, define the worsening event, audit integrity and access, record both response classes, restore support, and retain resurgence as a bounded hypothesis.

Build Cora's resurgence evidence review

Create one versioned resurgence evidence review for the accessible volunteer-scheduling routine. Include Cora's priority, response classes, phases, contexts, treatment versions, reinforcement, exposure, integrity, access, health, recurrence timing, safety action, direct experience, invalidity, missingness, withdrawal, candidate process, alternative explanations, design limits, decision, qualified owner, correction, and reassessment trigger. Store only decision-relevant information with role-limited access.

Validate Cora's recurrence evidence

Reproduce Cora's first 20 planned opportunities with 18 requests, one app close, and one invalid. That leaves 19 valid response opportunities, so the stable response rates are 18/19 and 1/19. In the changed phase, keep eight requests and six app closes as raw counts across 20 planned opportunities. Three connectivity-invalid events leave a candidate valid denominator of 17, but the summary does not assign the other three valid opportunities a response code. The three missing partner responses belong in a separate partner-delivery field and may overlap response codes. Do not add them to the response-class total or calculate 8/17 and 6/17 until the other/no-response codes and the partner-response due-event denominator are documented. Verify prior history, alternative reinforcement, delay version, context, integrity, access, health, direct report, rollback, and safety action.

Connect Cora's evidence to a decision

Cora's team uses the review first to restore the agreed partner response and reliable connection. A resurgence label becomes decision-relevant only if the prior and alternative reinforcement histories, worsening event, and recurrence are sufficiently documented. The plan can roll back the change while that question remains open.

Work through Cora's example

Across 20 planned stable scheduling opportunities, Cora uses an accessible break request in 18 and closes the app in one; one is invalid. The valid response-class rates are therefore 18/19 and 1/19. After the response delay changes without planned review, the planned-opportunity record contains eight break requests, six app closes, three missing partner-response records, and three connectivity-invalid events. The missing partner-response records are a separate field, so they do not complete the response-class denominator. Keep eight and six as raw response counts until the remaining valid response codes are confirmed. The sequence raises a resurgence hypothesis while also showing integrity, missing-data, and system problems. Preserve every planned and valid unit, response code, phase and context version, treatment component, reinforcement event, exposure, integrity result, access and health state, safety response, withdrawal, direct report, system failure, repair, correction, and unresolved item. This fictional example demonstrates one assessment control. It offers no diagnosis, person trait, universal relapse estimate, treatment effect, legal conclusion, coverage decision, payment promise, or outcome guarantee for Cora.

Address Cora's main interpretation risk

Calling 6/20 resurgence before auditing the unplanned delay, missing partner data, and connectivity failures assigns a mechanism too early. The app-closing response also needs a documented earlier reinforcement history rather than an assumed one. Review response and phase definitions, treatment history, reinforcement, exposure, context, integrity, access, health, partner behavior, direct experience, alternative explanations, authority, and design strength separately. A convincing graph cannot repair an unsafe, inaccessible, unwanted, or historically unsupported recurrence assessment.

Keep treatment scope and authority clear for Cora

For Cora's resurgence evidence review, the CASP public summary supplies high-level ABA behavioral-health-treatment scope for autistic people, with licensed detail outside this page. The current BACB Ethics Code addresses competence, client involvement, consent and assent when applicable, medical needs, risk, data, documentation, evaluation, discontinuation, and transition for covered people. The BACB outline supplies examination content. These sources create no individualized relapse protocol or practice authority for Cora.

Distinguish early increase from recurrence for Cora

The historical Lerman and Iwata analysis reviewed extinction data and found early increases under a defined burst criterion in a minority of reviewed data sets. An extinction burst describes a time-linked early increase after extinction begins, whereas Cora's later recurrence question requires its own phase history. The study offers no universal prevalence estimate for current care, no safety authorization, and no prediction for the accessible volunteer-scheduling routine.

Use alternative-reinforcement and communication literature within scope for Cora

Athens and Vollmer evaluated differential reinforcement without extinction with seven children and varied dimensions such as immediacy, duration, and quality. The Tiger, Hanley, and Bruzek review discusses FCT assessment, response selection, partner response, schedule thinning, and related risks. These sources support careful history and delivery measurement for Cora; they supply no universal schedule, delay, consequence, or relapse outcome.

Use renewal evidence cautiously for Cora

The Podlesnik renewal review synthesizes basic and translational work on recurrence with context change while extinction or treatment contingencies remain. Much of that evidence comes from controlled laboratory arrangements. Understanding and Reacting to Relapse discusses practice-facing context and recurrence considerations. For Cora, define people, places, cues, treatment continuity, access, and integrity before applying renewal language.

Preserve broad relapse limits and communication access for Cora

Relapse and Its Mitigation distinguishes several recurrence histories and discusses mitigation concepts. It organizes hypotheses rather than proving which process occurred for Cora. ASHA's AAC portal says AAC users should always have access to communication tools or devices. Follow governing sources and preserve Cora's communication, health care, food, water, bathroom use, mobility, rest, relationships, safety, and emergency help throughout review.

Choose Cora's next bounded action

Cora requests the prior response time and a visible availability signal. The team records the rollback as a new phase rather than continuing the unplanned delay for more data. Record the qualified owner, source evidence, effective date, current phase and treatment version, ordinary supports, access and health state, implementation check, accessible explanation, disagreement route, and reassessment trigger. Preserve the earlier record when responses, people, settings, systems, schedules, health, or priorities change. A repaired arrangement creates a dated phase rather than an error in Cora's prior performance.

Close Cora's relapse review

Review the resurgence evidence review with Cora, the qualified behavior analyst, relevant partners, access owners, and specialists named in the manifest. Confirm that observed recurrence remains separate from resurgence, renewal, an extinction burst, treatment drift, access failure, health change, and treatment effect; every denominator is reproducible; AAC and basic access remain protected; urgent needs received action; and conclusions stay bounded to the supported history. Keep this page draft and noindex until every required review is complete.

How to Assess Resurgence After Alternative Reinforcement Worsens