Parity is one source of automatic reinforcement that increases the probability of verbal behavior that conforms to models provided by the verbal community. Parity as a conditioned reinforcer could explain the acquisition of grammar in the absence of direct, explicit reinforcement. This possibility has been explored in previous research on…

This paper reviews evidence for and against imitation as a factor in the acquisition of syntax. It is concluded that the effects of imitation of children's speech are too pervasive to be dismissed as irrelevant. An important question is how a child extracts grammatical information from imitated sequences. (CHK)

A structured discourse strategy, employing child echoic imitations and adult expansion, was used to teach five autistic preschool children two-term semantic relations. The strategy increased the children's initial spontaneous imitations of two-term relations. Following the imitation increase, spontaneous productions of the two-term relations…

This review of literature on children's learning focuses on the following seven subject areas: (1) Infant learning, particularly studies of conditioning and individual differences in infants, (2) New perspectives on Piaget, reviewing studies where conservation and transitive inferences have been taught to young children, (3) Language and…

Justifies including dinosaurs as a topic in the curriculum for young children if approached from the inquiry processes of science exploration. Suggests that this topic encourages observational, classification, and communication skills and the ability to compare, hypothesize, and derive conclusions. (AS)

Approximately 1,500 published and unpublished books and articles are listed in this bibliography on the broad area of observational learning in children which includes modeling, imitation, and vicarious conditioning. The majority of sources listed are dated from the 1960's and 1970's although some date as far back as the 1930's. Research in such…

This report presents ten ideas about children's learning and cognition that are based on recent research. The empirical findings are reviewed and related to educational practices. The findings concern the following topics of learning and cognition: (1) individual differences, (2) children's problem-solving abilities and ability to remember…

The reflections and theses on preschool children's literacy development presented in this book are the result of an experimental project carried out in Buenos Aires from 1974 to 1976. Chapter 1 discusses the educational situation in Latin America, traditional methods of reading instruction, contemporary psycholinguistics, the pertinence of…