Increasing Quiet Compliance by Detained Male Adolescents.

Seven detained boys took part. Each youth had a history of swearing, loud talk, or obscene gestures during class.

The team first taught a brief self-control routine: stop, take a breath, pick a coping thought. Then they used DRL. A timer started at 30 s. If the teen stayed quiet for the whole interval he earned points. Points bought snacks, extra rec time, or a later bedtime.

Problem talk dropped to zero or one instance per 10-min session for every boy. Quiet compliance, measured by following teacher requests within 5 s, rose above 90 %.

The gains held when staff swapped in new tasks and when the timer was stretched to 2 min. Two months later the low rates were still in place.

TCruz-Montecinos et al. (2024) ran a similar DRL plan with five autistic boys at a clinic table. They also saw vocal disruptions fall, showing the tactic works across diagnoses and settings.

Allison et al. (1980) first proved that aggression can be escape-maintained. Laposa et al. (2017) build on that idea: they kept academic demands in place and used DRL to reinforce pausing instead of swearing. Same escape engine, newer tool.

Cox et al. (2017) paired progressive DRO with prompting so kids with ASD could lie still for MRI. Both studies layer differential reinforcement onto adult-directed tasks, but one aims for motionless silence and the other for quiet compliance. The packages differ yet the logic matches.

If you run groups in detention, day-treatment, or any classroom where profanity flies, try this two-step. Teach a 5-second self-control pause, then reinforce silence with DRL intervals starting at 30 s. You can deliver points, snacks, or activity time. Expect near-zero disruption and 90 % compliance within a week. The timer and rewards are easy for staff to carry out and for teens to understand.