This technique is used by mental health professionals and teachers. Its basis is behavioral science--people do things because they get a reward of some kind (attention, etc.). Remove the reward and the behavior will extinguish.
Based on the principle of extinction, planned ignoring is very effective in reducing
relatively minor disruptive behaviors, especially when the student is being
reinforced for other appropriate classroom behaviors.
Planned ignoring involves removing attention contingent on the student's display of a
behavior. The underlying reason why this procedure works is that attention has been
serving as a reinforcer for the student's display of the behavior. Removing the
reinforcer should result in a decrease in the disruptive behavior.
It is very common for teachers to provide students who have been disruptive
with extra attention in the form of "lectures", scolding, and reprimands
following their display of the disruptive behaviors. Unfortunately, many
students appear to like the added attention, even though it was the teacher's
intent that the attention be punitive. It is common for teachers during school
visits to report that they have a student who actually appears to like to be
yelled at. Upon observing the student in the class, it becomes apparent that
the student (one of many) is being disruptive to get the added attention.
Initially, after implementing planned ignoring, the student may
actually show a brief increase in the behavior. This is called a
burst. The teacher must be ready to continue to ignore the
disruptive behavior .
During the burst, the student may also show greater diversity of inappropriate
behaviors and again, the teacher must be ready to ignore these behaviors. If the
teacher provides attention to the student at this point in time, the students display of
the disruptive behaviors may actually worsen.
Planned ignoring is most effective when the student is also concurrently receiving
reinforcement for an alternative behavior. Thus, it would be prudent for a teacher
to choose what appropriate behaviors could be reinforced and based upon a FBA,
could take the place of the disruptive behavior prior to implementing the program.