An Evaluation and Comparison of Time-Out Procedures With and Without Release Contingencies

A common recommendation for implementing time-out procedures is to include a release contingency such that the individual is not allowed to leave time-out until no problem behavior has occurred for a specific amount of time (e.g, 30 s). We compared a fixed-duration time-out procedure to a release contingency time-out procedure with 4 young children (3- and 4-year-olds) using a reversal and multielement design. Results demonstrated that both time-out procedures were effective at reducing problem behavior outside time-out, problem behavior occurred in time-out during both procedures, and problem behavior in time-out was not predictive of problem behavior outside time-out.