The experimenter conducted three experiments to compare incidental language acquisition of familiar and non-familiar stimuli, and asses the effects of specific pairing experiences on the emergence of bidirectional naming (BiN) for familiar and non-familiar stimuli. In Experiment I the experimenter assessed the numbers of accurate untaught listener…

In Experiment 1, I conducted a functional analysis of student rate of learning with and without a peer-yoked contingency for 12 students in Kindergarten through 2nd grade in order to determine if they had conditioned reinforcement for collaboration. Using an ABAB reversal design, I compared rate of learning as measured by learn units to criterion…

One control group and eight experimental groups, each composed of 12 first grade children, participated in this experiment. It was designed to investigate the effects of frequency of reinforcement and repeated evaluation of stimuli on the conditioning of preferences. Each child participated in the experiment for seven consecutive school days. The…

Development of preference found to be related to frequency of association of rewards with a critical stimulus. This article is based on a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the Pennsylvania State University by the first author. (MH)

Investigates the role of instructions in operant conditioning research with children. Subjects are verbally instructed to make an unreinforced response while an incompatible response is monetarily rewarded. Examines the effects of experimenter presence and characteristics of the adult giving the instructions. (DP)

This research project was designed to explore suitable operant methods to assure successful acquisition of some initial formal reading skills by first and second graders. The subjects were 12 pupils diagnosed as predicted reading failures by failing scores on four or more subtests of a 10 test battery suggested by DeHirsch, Jansky, and Langford…

Management procedures were successfully employed to decrease the frequency with which first-grade children left small instructional centers. Observations made on the percent of the children's appropriate social and academic behaviors showed increases during the modification conditions. Also, the time the teacher spent in responding to…

The relative weakness of sex-role labels as reinforcers, and the disappearance of differential effectiveness of male and female labels at the fourth-grade level would appear to be congruent with Kohlberg's (1966) cognitively based theory of sex-role acquisition. (Authors)

The purpose of this study was to perform pilot research upon two normal children aged six years (an age midway between complete absence of time conceptualization and maturation of time concepts) in order to chart the characteristic responses within a conditioning paradigm. Previous literature in the field is reviewed for the purpose of providing a…