Understanding DRA in ABA Therapy
DRA stands for Differential Reinforcement of Alternative behavior. It is one of the most commonly used procedures in ABA therapy, and honestly, it gets recommended for just about every case whether it actually fits or not. The concept is straightforward: you reinforce a new, appropriate behavior while withholding reinforcement from the problem behavior. That is the core mechanism, but the execution is where things get complicated. I want to talk about how this actually plays out in real sessions, not just the textbook definition. When a therapist sets up a DRA procedure, they need to identify what is maintaining the problem behavior first. If you do not figure out the function, you are essentially guessing, and that leads to failed implementations. I have seen this happen repeatedly with escape-maintained tantrums where the caregiver accidentally reinforces the alternative behavior in a way that still provides access to escape, which completely undermines the entire procedure. Let me give you a specific example from my experience. I worked with a child who had severe vocal disruptions in a classroom setting, and the initial DRA plan called for reinforcing quiet independent work. The problem was that the teacher was not consistently delivering the reinforcer, and the schedule of reinforcement was intermittent enough that the disruptive vocalizing was still getting reinforced occasionally through peer attention. It took three weeks of fiddling with the setup before we got the alternative behavior to actually compete effectively. The workaround was to tighten the reinforcement schedule dramatically, make it continuous for the first few sessions, and train the classroom staff to deliver the reinforcer within two seconds of the alternative behavior occurring.
One thing people rarely talk about with DRA is the competition ratio. The alternative behavior needs to be at least as reinforcing as the problem behavior for it to work, and this is where many implementations fail. If the problem behavior has been heavily reinforced for a long time, simply reinforcing an alternative behavior on a weak schedule will not move the needle. You sometimes need to pair the reinforcer with something more potent initially, then gradually fade it down. This pairing process can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks depending on the history of reinforcement for the problem behavior. Another counter-intuitive point: DRA alone is rarely sufficient for severe problem behaviors. The research supports using DRA in combination with extinction procedures for the problem behavior, but extinction by itself can produce an extinction burst that makes the situation temporarily worse before it gets better. I had a case where a child's aggressive hitting escalated significantly during the first two weeks of DRA plus extinction, and the parents wanted to quit because they thought it was not working. The data clearly showed the trend was still downward despite the burst, and by week three the aggression dropped substantially. Staying the course through that burst is critical, but it is also emotionally difficult for families, so you need to prepare them for it upfront. The alternative behavior you select matters enormously too. It needs to be functional, meaning it serves the same purpose as the problem behavior but in an appropriate way. If the problem behavior is attention-seeking, the alternative should be a way to gain attention that is socially appropriate. If it is tangibly motivated, the alternative should allow access to the item or activity in a different manner. Mismatching the function is one of the most common errors I see, and it basically guarantees the intervention will not work long-term.
Data collection with DRA should track both the alternative behavior and the problem behavior independently. Some programs only measure reduction in the problem behavior, but that misses important information about whether the alternative is actually being emitted and at what rate. If the problem behavior decreases but the alternative behavior is also staying low, you have a problem with teaching or reinforcement, not just behavior suppression. A limitation worth noting is that DRA requires consistent implementation across all environments where the behavior occurs. If the child learns the alternative behavior works at school but the parents are not implementing it at home, generalization becomes nearly impossible without additional systematic effort. You should plan for that gap from the beginning rather than hoping it will resolve on its own. If DRA is not producing results after about four to six weeks of consistent implementation, you should reassess the reinforcer quality, the alternative behavior's adequacy, and whether the function analysis was accurate. Sometimes switching to DRA with reinforcement of incompatible behavior, where the alternative is physically incompatible with the problem behavior, is a better fit depending on the specific circumstances.
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