This study tests the hypothesis that children who viewed videotaped aggression would imitate aggressive behaviors more frequently than would children who were not exposed to aggressive displays. A cognitive factor, reinforcement value, was also hypothesized to be a significant variable in the behavior of the children. Prior to treatment, subjects…

An experiment was conducted to determine the conditions under which selective imitation of relative clauses could be produced in preschool. Imitation training was more effective than modeling alone, and instructions and reinforcements were effective in an additive manner. Implications for the role of imitation in language development are…

Psycholinguistic literature discounts the role of three social learning variables: feedback or reinforcement, modeling or imitation, and contextual constraints on language. Social learning, function, and context in language acquisition have been underrepresented in favor of cognitive and structural factors, which are limited because they…

A structured discourse strategy, employing child echoic imitations and adult expansion, was used to teach five autistic preschool children two-term semantic relations. The strategy increased the children's initial spontaneous imitations of two-term relations. Following the imitation increase, spontaneous productions of the two-term relations…

Twenty children (ages 5-6) with specific language impairment (SLI) were taught a nonlinguistic conceptual rule under imitation or modeling conditions. No intergroup differences were found between the extent of overall learning displayed. Performance of SLI children was not better under the imitation condition than under modeling. (Author/JDD)

This pilot study explored the characteristics of children's co-inquiry with a mentor and the changes occurring in their questioning with prolonged engagement in mediated inquiry. Six graduate students, who were practicing teachers, acted as mentors to individual students for inquiry into child-selected topics for 10 weeks. Children ranged in age…

One prediction derived from observational learning theory is that children learn parental-role behaviors by observing parental models. Variables which strongly influence behavior acquisition and performance during observational learning are the behavioral consequences of an action, and the sex of the behavioral model. To evaluate the effects of…

The acquisition of imitative responses without reinforcement was investigated with infants by eliminating contingent reinforcement through the use of videotaped models. Twenty-nine male and female infants were randomly assigned to one of two groups, a Rhythmic Vocalization Group or a Conversation Control Group. Infants in the first group were…

The article describes an emerging approach to the development of training known as behavior modeling, based on the principles of social-learning theory. Applications of modeling and social learning to training and reports of successful behavior-modeling programs in various businesses are included. (MF)

Tested the effectiveness of ridicule as an educational and social corrective in children's educational television programs. Found that ridicule is a potent means of educating six-year-old television viewers but is far less satisfactory in motivating four-year-olds to action or in deterring their unwanted performances. (PD)

Investigating the effect of age and temporal placement of a modelled skill on performance of a balance task of 60 boys (seven and nine years old) indicated significant effects of age, temporal appearance of the model, and an interaction of model by age for time on-balance. (Author/PN)

This study examined the effects of observational learning on preschoolers' attention to print, use of a questioning technique, and knowledge of the alphabet. Participating were 13 boys and 13 girls from a day care center at a community college, with a mean age of 4.3 years. Children were randomly assigned to one of three training conditions, each…

This study reviews relevant research on same race imitation and reports on a study of imitation under conditions of ascribed and racial similarity in two culturally distinct and separate groups, white and aboriginal Australian children. Ascribed (by the experimenter) similarity and racial similarity resulted separately in greater imitation of a…

Investigated in two studies involving 52 profoundly retarded Ss (8-29 years old) were a parameter descriptive of the subject (sex) and the effectiveness of a modeling technique to evoke a response. The major finding of the first investigation in which there were two sessions was that exposure of Ss to a live model produced a significant increase…

Six-and eight-year olds were exposed to a modeling sequence for cluster rule learning under high, medium, and low degrees of structure. Age differences in vicarious learning emerged only in the medium structure condition, while immediately imitating a model failed to influence learning for either age group. (Author/CP)