In the present essay, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the publication of B. F. Skinner's "Verbal Behavior", I stand by and defend the judgment I expressed in my article "The Long Goodbye: Why B. F. Skinner's 'Verbal Behavior' Is Alive and Well on the 50th Anniversary of Its Publication" (2008c)--that Skinner's…

Jack Michael was an early enthusiast for what is now called applied behavior analysis. His many seminal contributions were through early publications in applied behavior analysis and the work of the students he trained (e.g., T. Ayllon, M. M. Wolf). His close mentorship of students earned him acclaim as a teacher along with his many theoretical…

This article reviews the negative behavior-analytic commentary on Drash and Tudor's behavior-analytic analysis of the etiology of autistic repertoires and values. This article also asks that, in our effort to scrub it clean, we not drown Drash and Tudor's beautiful, but fragile, new-born, behavior-analytic baby in hyper-methodological,…

Drash and Tudor's argument that autism is a contingency-shaped disorder of verbal behavior is logical and consistent with behavioral principles, but the argument's premises have no direct empirical support and some conflicting evidence. The quantity and quality of research needed to support such a theory is compared to that found in the area of…