Research on learning and conditioning suggests that verbal response modification does not occur in the absence of the subject's ability to define verbally (1) the response-reinforcement relationships and (2) his intention to change his behavior in the direction of reinforcement. This seems to be true for operant conditioning of verbal behavior,…

Seven 18- to 32-month-old children received from seven to 26 experimental sessions each between October 1966 and April 1967. A session lasted from 5 to 15 minutes and concerned control over the verbal responses of the children with token-operated reinforcement devices. In order to make the results of the experimental sessions meaningful, an…

Implications of the behaviorist and cognitive theories in language instruction are discussed in this article. Some contributions of Skinner, Politzer, Valette, Morton, Lane, and Mueller and Niedzielski clarify the behaviorists' view of language as a myriad of conditioned responses. In turn, the cognitive viewpoint, seen as the acquisiton and…

INTENDED FOR SPEECH THERAPISTS, THEACHERS OF THE MENTALLY RETARDED, AND OTHERS IN SPECIAL EDUCATION, THE COLLECTION CONTAINS REPORTS BY VARIOUS AUTHORS ON SPEECH AND LANGUAGE MODIFICATION ATTEMPTS THAT HAVE UTILIZED OPERANT CONDITIONING PROCEDURES, AS WELL AS SEVERAL PAPERS ON BACKGROUND TOPICS. BACKGROUND PAPERS ON TEACHING TREAT ENVIRONMENTAL…