Despite the seminal studies of response differentiation by the method of successive approximation detailed in chapter 8 of "The Behavior of Organisms" (1938), B. F. Skinner never actually shaped an operant response by hand until a memorable incident of startling serendipity on the top floor of a flour mill in Minneapolis in 1943. That occasion…

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…

This case study reports the use of token reinforcement in remedial reading instruction with an eleven-year-old boy from rural Appalachia. During phase one, tokens were given for reading 50-word passages without error; token value was contingent upon the number of attempts necessary to read without error. During phase two, words missed in phase one…

This case study describes a selective mute Mexican American boy, who, at initial referral, had never spoken to peers or teachers at school. Treatment procedures employed shaping and reinforcement of speech in therapy sessions. Sessions involved the psychologist alone, the classroom teacher and psychologist, the boy's best friend and the…

This study used behavioral measures of family interaction to examine four traditional explanatory models for the influence of parents on their children's self-esteem. The four models examined were: (1) identification/modeling, (2) directiveness, (3) reinforcement, and (4) warmth/involvement. A total of 98 fourth- and fifth-grade girls and boys…

THE PRESENT STUDY WAS DESIGNED TO DETERMINE WITHIN GROUP PLAY THERAPY--(1) THE COMBINATION OF EXPERIENCES WHICH PRODUCE THE GREATEST CHANGE IN BEHAVIORS AND THE EMOTIONAL STATE, AND (2) WHETHER TREATMENT INCLUDING TANGIBLE REWARDS PRODUCE MORE CHANGE THAN TREATMENT EXCLUDING THEM. THE 11 THIRD-GRADE BOYS REFERRED BY TEACHERS BECAUSE OF THEIR SHY,…

Research and demonstration activities at the Juniper Gardens Children's Project at the University of Kansas involved studies in these areas: (1) an after school remedial classroom program, (2) inappropriate study behavior in class, and (3) demonstration activities which involved teacher and parent training. The effects of reinforcement…

This paper reports to two experiments designed to develop a behavioral procedure to teach young children emergency dialing skills. Experiment 1 evaluated the effects of a behavioral procedure administered by the classroom teachers. In the classrooms training focused upon making phone calls in emergency situations. Six steps in emergency dialing…

An effort was made to assess the relative effectiveness of different reinforcement systems versus traditional teaching with maladjusted boys. The subjects were 60 boys in grades 6 and 7 who participated during language arts classes, but total data were gathered on 26 boys. The boys had histories of aggressive behavior and language problems.…

Fifteen articles by different authors discuss behavior modification in terms of research, training, and social application. Topics considered include the classification of behavioral pathology, the extension of learning principles to human behavior, studies of normal and deviant child behavior, operant conditioning of two speech-deficient boys,…

A description is provided of a computer-based simulation of an instructional system which adapts the learning environment to the individual's unique attributes for processing information and for being motivated. The main purposes of the simulation are: 1) to introduce, as attributes for individualizing instruction, information processing variables…

The problem of a steadily rising crime rate and an apparent inability of existing legal, judicial, and penal procedure to serve as either deterrents to or modifiers of criminal behavior are presented. The point is made that the principles of behavior modification derive primarily from basic research performed within the framework of the…

Although the literature on reinforcement in behavioral psychology is extensive, few studies have examined the derived transformation of reinforcing functions in accordance with equivalence classes, and no published research has yet examined the derived transformation of consequential functions in accordance with nonequivalence relations. In the…

PAPERS OR STUDIES CONCERNED WITH THE APPLICATION OF BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION PRINCIPLES TO CHILDREN AND RETARDATES ARE INCLUDED IN THIS ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY. AUTHORS ARE LISTED ALPHABETICALLY. A SHORT PARAGRAPH DESCRIBES THE GENERAL NATURE OF EACH STUDY CITED, AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES ARE GIVEN. THERE ARE 130 ENTRIES IN THIS BIBLIOGRAPHY. (MS)

At the Child Language Development Center at the University of Rochester, basic research in children's verbal behavior and the exploration of procedures for extending successful laboratory techniques to the typical preschool setting are being continued. Experiments in contingency management and the establishment of requisite antecedent behaviors…