Evidence of AAB, ABA, and ABC renewal procedures for instrumental response in elementary school children

Abstract

The reappearance of undesirable behaviours in educational settings, even after applying extinction techniques, remains a persistent challenge for educators. One mechanism that explains this phenomenon is the renewal effect, which has been well-documented in studies with adult humans and other animals, but still underexplored in children. This study investigated the effects of applying AAB renewal procedures (Experiment 1) and ABA and ABC renewal procedures (Experiment 2) through an instrumental learning task in primary school children. The results revealed that, consistent with previous findings, a context change between the extinction and test phases contributes to the return of previously extinguished behaviour. These findings provide an innovative perspective to carry out experiments aimed at evaluating strategies to mitigate response recovery effects, thereby facilitating the subsequent designing of more effective educational interventions to prevent relapse.