Withdrawn and disruptive students can make progress in an alternative school where they receive individualized instruction and attention with a system of earned credits and fines. The student body in an alternative school may be hetereogeneous, ranging from the borderline mentally retarded and learning disabled to the emotionally disturbed. Their…

Acceptance of handicapped students by their peers is a major component of success in the mainstreamed classroom. How teachers plan for interactions and lessons determines the degree to which social acceptance is achieved. The teacher's behavior models desired social acceptance, and the structure of learning activities evidence academic…

Following a literature review on the subjects of the decline in student writing abilities and increased student writing apprehension, this paper offers teachers information on a basic writing program that reduces writing anxiety and improves writing skills through large doses of positive reinforcement. The second section of the paper discusses the…

This manual describes a systematic approach, behavioral prescripting, for dealing with student problem behaviors. Aspects of the behavioral prescripting process are described, including: (1) enlisting the support of parents and teachers; (2) deciding on the problem behaviors; (3) collecting baseline data; (4) building a reinforcement schedule; (5)…

This report describes a study of the use of social reinforcement to increase the industriousness, and subsequently the reading competence, of children in the kindergarten through third grade classes of the Kamehameha Early Education Program (KEEP) demonstration school. Teacher behaviors, pupil industriousness, and pupil reading performance were…

The process of promoting behavior change in children described as being immature or antisocial with conduct or behavioral disorders can be enhanced by training their parents in operant techniques in an outpatient clinic setting. Most parents can respond to training because a theoretical understanding of operant techniques is not a prerequisite for…

THE VERBAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE FIRST YEARS OF LIFE IS CRUCIAL IN THE LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. THERE IS A CLOSE INTERRELATEDNESS AMONG LANGUAGE ARTS. SPEAKING, WRITING, LISTENING, AND READING PERFORM RECIPROCAL FUNCTIONS IN THE COMMUNICATIVE CYCLE. THEREFORE, THERE IS A NEED TO REINFORCE LANGUAGE ARTS IN ALL GRADES AND IN ALL…

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND EDUCATIONAL FACTORS INVOLVED IN THE TRANSFER OF TRAINING WERE STUDIED BY USE OF PROGRAMED SELF-INSTRUCTION USING TEACHING MACHINES. THIS MEDIUM WAS CHOSEN BECAUSE IT PROVIDES LABORATORY-LIKE CONDITIONS SUCH AS STABILIZED METHODS, AND STIMULUS CONTROL INCLUDING CONTROL OF TEACHER PERSONALITY, PLUS A STEP-BY-STEP RECORD OF THE…

THIS SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY LISTS MATERIALS ON VARIOUS FACETS OF HUMAN LEARNING. APPROXIMATELY 60 UNANNOTATED REFERENCES ARE PROVIDED FOR DOCUMENTS DATING FROM 1954 TO 1966. JOURNAL ARTICLES, BOOKS, RESEARCH REPORTS, AND CONFERENCE PAPERS ARE LISTED. SOME SUBJECT AREAS INCLUDED ARE (1) LEARNING PARAMETERS AND ABILITY, (2) RETENTION AND…

THE EFFECTS OF TWO POSTULATED COMPETITIVE CONDITIONS ON GROUPS OF RELATIVELY SLOW LEARNERS WERE EXAMINED DURING THE REPORTED RESEARCH. THE TWO COMPETITIVE CONDITIONS WERE--(1) HOMOGENEOUS GROUPING, AS OPPOSED TO HETEROGENEOUS GROUPING AND (2) PUBLIC DISPLAY OF THE PERFORMANCE OF ALL MEMBERS OF A GROUP, AS OPPOSED TO INDIVIDUALIZED FEEDBACK. FOUR…

Happy Sticks, the name given to the reinforcement system used in a classroom of pre-school autisitc children, is presented. Happy Sticks are decorated tongue depressors serving as token rewards; Happy Bags, or pouches are worn by the children around their necks to hold the earned Happy Sticks. Reinforcement can be immediate and occur throughout…

The usefulness of concepts gleaned from identification theory was explored in an analysis of questionnaires from students in urban high schools in 1966. An "identificatory sequence" consisting of identificatory process and identificatory motive, and culminating in value similarity between child and parent, was proposed. This sequence was linked,…

The described inservice education programs are designed for regular classroom teachers dealing with mainstreamed students who require specific diagnostic and corrective plans and strategies. Included in this informative report are an outline of the contents of the programs, the activities and resources they involve, and ordering information for…

A report on learning psychology and its relationship to the study of school learning emphasizes the increasing interaction between theorists and educational practitioners, particularly in attempting to learn which variables influence the instructional process and to find an appropriate methodology to measure and evaluate learning. "Learning…

This IRCD Bulletin issue contains two brief papers. One, on contingency management, describes the application of this aspect of operant conditioning theory to the manipulation of behavior through reinforcement methods. Examples of the technique of managing high and low probability behaviors are offered as it is used with preschool children,…