The Maintenance Fallacy

Keith, 

I'm taking the liberty of including the Notes audience in this email, as they will appreciate how articulately you've summarized the maintenance issues and the maintenance fallacy. 

We're running into the maintenance fallacy in our autism work now. It's assumed that the natural or subsequent educational environment will maintain the skills we're teaching the preschool autistic kids. But one of our gang, Nic Weatherly, did a dissertation whose results suggested otherwise, even for kids who stayed in our classroom. So now another student, Tialha Nover, is doing an OBM project to facilitate follow-up maintenance training to ensure that the kids keep their hard-learned skills. 

And I'm starting to think that most of our behavior-analytic autism curricula sort of have the maintenance fallacy built into them. I'm thinking that maybe we shouldn't be teaching any skill (e.g., matching to sample or receptive identification of pictures) unless it is the basis of or a component of the very next skill we're teaching. I'm thinking too often we're teaching skills because they're the skills they typically teach in regular or special-ed classrooms, without concern for the maintenance and immediate functionality of those specific skills. But it's hard to design a curriculum that meets those rigorous requirements--so hard it makes my brain hurt.

Keith, please keep me posted on your thoughts on maintenance etc.

Everyone, I'd really appreciated suggestions about existing autism curricula or parts of curricula where each skill carefully leads to and is a basis for or incorporated in the next skill and/or thoughts about how to design such a curriculum. 

Dick

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On Mar 22, 2010, at 10:11 AM, Miller, L Keith wrote:

Hi Dick,

Thanks for the wonderful response!  And sharing with me your Notes... 

I'm glad you brought up again the "Maintenance Fallacy."  You had also

raised the issue with me several years ago after the panel discussion on

survival --- and I promised to share my ideas someday.  

I tried to look up "Maintenance Fallacy" in the 5th Edition of your

textbook --- but without success.  However, I did read what you have to

say about Maintenance.

So help me out.  I think you mean by the Maintenance Fallacy the

assumption that a behavior, once established under researcher-delivered

consequences, will continue in the everyday world of the participant

without researcher-delivered consequences.  You also question the

assumption that the researcher can slowly fade their delivery of

consequences to achieve continued emission of the target behavior with

no researcher-delivered consequences.

At the same time, you leave open the possibility that the real world

might, without further researcher interference, deliver consequences

that will maintain some behaviors established through

researcher-delivered consequences --- that is, that a behavior trap for

that behavior may exist.  

I think that this is a vital issue.  Our field has made the assumption

for decades that all we have to do is establish a behavior that we value

and the world will take care of the rest.  It obviously hasn't worked.

Please correct or refine my understanding as needed.  Then I will see if

you agree that some of my programs have given us an approach to solving

the problem.

Keith

L. Keith Miller, Professor

Applied Behavioral Science

University of Kansas

-----Original Message-----

From: richard.malott@wmich.edu [mailto:richard.malott@wmich.edu] On

Behalf Of Dick Malott

Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 7:03 PM

To: Miller, L Keith

Subject: Thanks

Keith,

I don't think I've ever received such a nice letter. It sure brings back

nice memories. At this point, my earliest memory is our standing on the

balcony of a Roger Ulrich, Division 25, APA hospitality, maybe in DC.

And of course your visit to Kzoo and my visit to your and Ocoee's

wonderful home; maybe Whaley was along on one of those trips. 

Perhaps my favorite thing about ABA is that it's full of a large  number

of dream chasers, chasing dreams in so many different areas. And you are

certainly one of my favorite dream chasers. 

I hope we finally get a chance at the next ABA to discuss how you've

managed to overcome the maintenance fallacy!

Thanks again, for your wonderful letter,

Dick

PS loved your Newsletter to; hope you keep me on your list.