The beginnings of the phrase "the child knows best" came from an experiment by Ogden Lindsley while working in Skinner's lab. When an experiment in extinction occurred differently than predicted by the textbook, Skinner told Og, "The rat knows best! That's why we still have him in the experiment."

Lindsley writes for the first time, "Laboratory research had proven rate to be more sensitive than percent correct and other less direct behavior measures." Lindsley, O. R. (1956). Operant conditioning methods applied to research in chronic schizophrenia. Psychiatric Research Reports, 5, 118-139.

Norris G. Haring accepted a position at the University of Kansas Medical Center as Educational Director of the Children’s Rehabilitation Unit.

This graph shows Lindsley’s graphing responses in the thousands and still acknowledging a zero, or no-count, response. It is an Add-Subtract graph with vertical axis showing Responses/Hour in Thousands (0 to 5 by 1s) by Experimental Sessions (660 to 780 by 20s) on horizontal axis, p. 52.

Lindsley, O. R. (1963). Free-operant conditioning and psychotherapy from Current Therapies, Vol III, Part II-Techniques of Psychotherapy (pp. 47-56) New York: Grune & Stratton, Inc.

Ann Dell Warren travels to Kansas. “I…made the drive the summer of 1964 to Kansas in my beige Chrysler 4 door boat full of books, clothes and dreams of making a difference.”

Lindsley writes of Acquisition and Maintenance Prostheses and presents four-component, Operant Behavioral Equations (EA-M-A-ES and S-R-K-C) that became the basis (Lindsley, 12 Sep 1997 & Lindsley, 1970) for the five component Is-Does Learning Plan Sheet (P-PE-M-A-AE and D-S-R-K-C) devised in 1970.

Nancy Hughes Lindsley stated that Kansas University Medical archive shows that Ogden’s hire date was 1 Jan 1965 as full professor in education, and that Ogden arrived at the KU medical center in January of 1965

“Academic performance can be accelerated by chart display.” Lindsley, 1990 (p.12). Lois Cox, supervised by Thomas Caldwell, found that pupil academic performance frequencies increased when pupils displayed their charts.
Lois also found that fourth-grade children enjoyed computing and charting their own daily performance frequencies. (p. 12)

Caldwell, T. E. & Cox, L. (1966). Fourth-grade children tabulate, mark-score, and graph their daily arithmetic performances. Unpublished manuscript, University of Kansas.

"A strong want galvanized me into action in 1966 when a school teacher, a student in my graduate class, spent over 30 minutes describing her class project chart projected on the wall to the 28 other students in the class.
Then another class member asked how old the child was, and the teacher answered, "That isn't the child's behavior. That's my behavior!" Sitting in the back of the room, I thought, Wow! 30 minutes and we don't even know whose behavior it is! There is no way we can have chart based teaching using self made charts! We have got to have a standard chart! And SOON! Or, this class will disintegrate!

At first, only frequencies were charted, and the zero frequency count-line placed off the grid was problematic. Nancy Johnson and Carl Koenig, noticing the distortion of the zero bounce and extreme asymmetry, brought Og into the discussion. It became apparent that the amount of behaving time was important and should be accounted for on the grid. The three determined the question mark could be used to represent a “recording floor.” They immediately dismissed the question mark convention, and the concept and definition of the floor (1/Time) materialized, “quickly.” The use of
the question mark for the recording floor was, Koenig stated, “only a brief moment.” The floor was established and a mark (dot or x) for zero was placed just below* it.

Haughton collaborates and consults with colleagues, state education departments and Great Falls, Montana project

Koenig has discussions about the three dimensions of behavior. We agreed that frequency was the first dimension of behavior and that the change in frequency (acceleration/deceleration) the second. Then we speculated about the third, the change in acceleration/deceleration [agility].

Koenig begins his doctoral program, resulting in his 5yr. Behavior Bank

Lindsley conducts the First Annual Short Course in How To Precisely Manage Behavior (3-7 June 1968) as a training service through Lindsley’s Behavior Research Company.

Daily Graph used in the August Thurston County Cooperative Special Services staff training in Olympia, WA.

Edwards and Edwards share their first complete fetal behavior development chart. They discovered all eight charts showed fetal movement frequencies varied but common in acceleration, maintenance, and deceleration across the time frame of fetal development.

Lindsley drafted and printed the Acceleration Finder, later called the Celeration Finder, sometime prior to the 1974 Price List (BRCo-CFM-3—meaning it is the 3rd version). Neely recalls scratching the “AC” letters off his Finder in 1972. The printed Acceleration Finder was created on clear Mylar with red print.

Sally Slezak’s thesis is, “The first to use the term daily behavior chart to report acceleration as movements per minute per week and to use an acceleration finder [italics added].” (Lindsley, 1995, p. 12).

Lindsley conducts the Second Annual Short Course in "How To Precisely Manage Behavior".

Lindsley writes of what Slezak discovered, “Pupils with orthopedic handicaps can chart their own behaviors (p. 12). Sally Slezak, under Lindsley’s supervision, taught two different classes of children with orthopedic handicaps.

Joe and Diane Edwards use Precision Teaching to complete their study of conditions affecting marriage relationships of 4 early married couples, including themselves.

Precision Teaching arrived in our vision just in time to fit into Management by Objectives training spearheaded by the State Special Education Department where

Ann Duncan published one of the first Precision Teaching articles that taught Precision Management skills of inner behaviors to children.

FIT course covers fundamentals of instructional design grounded in principles of learning derived from behavioral science and behavior analytic research. Emphasizes applications of programmed instruction, personalized systems of instruction, precision teaching, direct instruction, teaching machines and inter-teaching for collegiate instruction.

https://www.fit.edu/behavior-analysis/

Kelly Ferris welcomes aspiring Precision Teachers into the fold by clearly explaining how fluency is mastery quantified. She describes how and when to assess for fluent outcomes, affectionately called RESA checks.