BA420 Unit 7 Reversal and Withdrawal Design Paper Example

Withdrawing the Hand-Raise Tokens and Why We Did Not Reverse Them: A BA420 Unit 7 Reversal and Withdrawal Design Paper

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

BA420: Methods of Behavior Analysis

Unit 7 Reversal and Withdrawal Design Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the school, the student and every data point are composite and illustrative; the article and books cited are real.

The Intervention

Science class is where Tyrell's calling out was most frequent, so his plan started there. Tyrell, a sixth grader, calls out answers and comments in science without raising his hand. The district behavior analyst designed an intervention: each time Tyrell raised his hand and waited to be called on, the teacher placed a token on his desk, and five tokens earned five minutes at the class aquarium at the end of the period. Calling out produced no token and no answer from the teacher, who instead pointed silently to the hand-raise poster on the wall.

To show that the token program, rather than something else such as a new seating chart or the season, caused any change, the team needed a design that could demonstrate experimental control.

Withdrawal and Reversal

Leitenberg (1973) distinguished two designs that are often both called reversal designs. In a withdrawal design, the intervention is introduced and then removed, returning to baseline conditions, and then reintroduced: the familiar ABAB sequence. In a true reversal design, rather than simply removing the intervention, the contingency is applied to a different, often incompatible, behavior during the second phase. For example, instead of returning to no reinforcement, reinforcement would be delivered for calling out rather than for hand raising. Leitenberg argued that the distinction matters because the two designs answer slightly different questions and raise different practical and ethical issues.

Kazdin (2011) notes that true reversals can provide especially strong evidence, since behavior is shown to follow the contingency in both directions, but that they are rarely used in applied settings because deliberately strengthening an undesirable behavior is hard to justify.

The Proposal We Rejected

A graduate student completing fieldwork with the district suggested a true reversal for Tyrell's program: during the second phase, give tokens for call-outs instead of hand raises, then switch back. The district behavior analyst declined. Reinforcing call-outs would deliberately strengthen the behavior the plan was meant to reduce, disrupt the class and teach Tyrell that the rules changed arbitrarily. The question the team needed answered, whether the token program reduced calling out, could be answered with a withdrawal that asked far less of Tyrell and his classmates.

A true reversal would have taught Tyrell to call out on purpose, just to prove a point the withdrawal could make without that cost.

The Withdrawal Design

The team ran four phases. In baseline, eight sessions, Tyrell called out about 0.4 times per minute and raised his hand about once per session. In the token phase, eight sessions, call-outs fell within two sessions to about 0.1 per minute and hand raises rose to six or seven per session. In withdrawal, five sessions, tokens were no longer given for hand raising, though the teacher still called on Tyrell when he raised his hand. Call-outs rose to about 0.3 per minute by the third session, and hand raises dropped to two or three. When tokens returned, eight sessions, call-outs fell again to about 0.1 per minute.

Using a systematic visual analysis, the team counted three demonstrations of effect: the drop with tokens, the rise without them and the drop when they returned. The changes were immediate in the second and third phase changes and slightly delayed in the first, when Tyrell spent part of the first token session asking how many he needed. Overlap between token and non-token phases was minimal.

Practical Choices in the Withdrawal

Even a withdrawal raised practical and ethical questions for the team. The team kept the withdrawal phase short, five sessions rather than eight, to limit the time Tyrell's class experienced more disruption. During withdrawal, the teacher continued to call on Tyrell when he raised his hand, so the natural reinforcer for hand raising remained; only the tokens were removed. That choice made the withdrawal less complete than a laboratory version, but it reflected what the school, the teacher and the family were willing to do. Cooper et al. (2020) note that applied researchers routinely balance experimental rigor against the welfare of participants and the demands of the setting.

Talking With Tyrell's Family

Before the withdrawal phase, the district behavior analyst called Tyrell's mother to explain the plan. She was not pleased at first: if the tokens worked, why take them away? The analyst explained that a short withdrawal would show whether the tokens were responsible for the change, which mattered for deciding whether to continue them next year and whether to suggest the program for other students. She also explained that the withdrawal would last only a week, that the teacher would still call on Tyrell when he raised his hand, and that tokens would return afterward regardless of what the data showed. Tyrell's mother agreed, and asked to see the graph afterward. When she did, she asked whether a similar token system might help with interrupting at dinner, and the analyst offered to help the family set up a simple version at home.

When Withdrawal Does Not Work

Withdrawal designs depend on behavior returning toward baseline when the intervention is removed. That does not always happen. If an intervention teaches a skill, such as reading or a new way of asking for help, removing the intervention may not undo the learning. Sofia, another student on my caseload, learned to use a desk checklist to start work; when it was removed, her latency rose, but not all the way back to baseline, suggesting some of the skill had stayed. For skills that are not expected to reverse, multiple baseline designs, which demonstrate control without removing the intervention, are usually better.

Withdrawal is also inappropriate, and in most schools would not be approved, for dangerous behavior, such as self-injury or aggression, when returning to baseline would put the student or others at risk.

Conclusion

Tyrell's token program was tested with a withdrawal design, which showed three demonstrations of effect without the costs of a true reversal. Leitenberg's distinction clarifies the difference between the two, and Kazdin explains why true reversals, though strong evidence, are rarely justified in applied settings. Choosing a design meant weighing what the team needed to know against what it was fair to ask of a student and a class.

References

Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (2020). Applied behavior analysis (3rd ed.). Pearson.

Kazdin, A. E. (2011). Single-case research designs: Methods for clinical and applied settings (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Leitenberg, H. (1973). The use of single-case methodology in psychotherapy research. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 82(1), 87-101. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0034966