In this introduction, the editors provide an overview of resurgence and its importance to practitioners. They also provide an overview of the four articles contained in this special section focusing on the applied implications of resurgence.

Researchers, teachers, practitioners, and parents are often concerned with how to program for and achieve the maintenance of appropriate behavior. The unintended maintenance of problem behavior is less often evaluated. This article describes a behavioral phenomenon, resurgence, that may result in the unintended maintenance of problem behavior.…

This article describes the results of a series of studies that involved functional communication training (FCT) conducted in children's homes by their parents. The 103 children who participated were six years old or younger, had developmental delays, and engaged in destructive behaviors such as self-injury. The core procedures used in each study…

Reinforcing an alternative response in the same context as a target response reduces the rate of occurrence but increases the persistence of that target response. Applied researchers who use such techniques to decrease the rate of a target problem behavior risk inadvertently increasing the persistence of the same problem behavior. Behavioral…

This article reviews evidence from basic and translational research with pigeons and humans suggesting that the persistence of operant behavior depends on the contingency between stimuli and reinforcers, and considers some implications for clinical interventions. (Contains 4 figures.)

Basic research with pigeons on behavioral momentum suggests that differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) can increase the resistance of target behavior to change. This finding suggests that clinical applications of DRA may inadvertently increase the persistence of target behavior even as it decreases its frequency. We conducted…

The hypothesis that children with ADHD learn poorly under conditions of inconsistent reinforcement because they are easily frustrated and fail to develop persistence was investigated (N=22). Effects of partial and continuous reinforcement on measures of frustration, learning performance, and persistence were studied. Findings suggest that partial…

The use of high-probability (high-p) request sequences has enjoyed support in the applied behavioral literature as a method to increase compliance. Based on the theory of behavioral momentum, high-probability sequences increase the rate of responding, and subsequent rate of reinforcement, within a response class. This increase in density of…