The problem with extinction comes with the behaviors demonstrated. You don't expect little junior to give up getting attention do you? Ignore him and you will get a rock up the side of your head. It isn't about patience at all. It is about the size of the groups, the sort of kids allowed into programs, and the emphasis on consquencing. Parents want their kids consquenced in the mistaken idea that consquencing equals therapy. If they really wanted therapy they never would have sent their kid to some dump that has untrained staff watching their kids and calling it therapy.
In the context of teen BM facilities and the problems you elaborated in your more recent post, I totally agree. But under other circumstances, a combination of positive reinforcement + extinction can humanely teach new behaviors that replace old behaviors -- in non-retarded humans just as in animals.
Many parents intuitively know or learn this when raising young children -- and it most definitely requires patience. A great example many of us have seen is a child throwing a fit in the checkout line at the grocery store because he wants a candy bar or whatever. A parent can (and should, IMHO) ignore the whining -- which doesn't mean ignore the child, it just means don't reward the undesired behavior. Later, when the incident has passed, offer the kid the opportunity to earn the candy bar next time if he gets through the store
without throwing a fit. It may take a few more tantrum-throwing visits to the store, but eventually the kid will try it mom's way and see what happens. If the kid "behaves" in the store and is rewarded with a candy bar when they make it out to the parking lot, he will learn that this is the way to get what he wants, and not the behavior he was doing before, which wasn't getting him what he wanted.
You mentioned 'consequences', but in my example there are no consequences (aka punishments or 'negative reinforcement') -- there is only the absence of a reward until the desired behavior is demonstrated, and then the reward immediately follows.
I agree it would be very difficult if not impossible to implement 'soft' BM in a teen gulag, especially with kids that have real mental health problems and/or are prone to violence and especially with low staff to 'patient' ratios. That's why I made the distinction between the kind of BM (mostly punishment-based) that seems to be most popular in these facilities vs. the kind used to teach junior not to throw fits in the grocery store, or the kind used to teach Shamu to perform for the tourists.
