The alteration of behavior in a special classroom situation.

Two boys in a special class for emotional disturbance kept acting out.

The teacher stopped giving eye contact, scolding, or any attention when they yelled or left seats.

At the same time she praised any on-task or quiet behavior.

The team tracked disruption and work completed each period for several weeks.

Disruptive behavior dropped to near zero within days.

Time spent on school work more than doubled.

When the teacher briefly returned to her old ways, problems came back; switching again removed them.

The simple rule held: no attention for trouble, quick praise for work.

Lydersen et al. (1974) later asked, 'What if we pay for work, not just quiet?' Tokens for correct reading cut disruption even more and lifted academic output.

Petursdottir et al. (2019) added a twist: first find the function, then use tokens and fade them. Their meaningful improvement in problems echoes the 1962 pattern but makes the gains last.

Azrin (1970) ran a lab test and showed that telling subjects 'no more points' before extinction softens the burst. The classroom result mirrors this: when the teacher quit responding to outbursts, the boys' yelling faded fast.

Joslyn et al. (2020) scaled the same logic to a whole class of teens with severe EBD. Even sloppy use of the Good Behavior Game cut disruption, proving the 1962 trick works in bigger groups.

You can curb severe acting out tomorrow without new gear. Ignore the noise, lock your face, and within seconds praise the first right move. Pair this with tokens or group games later, but start with attention control alone. The data say it still works sixty years on.