This study, an approach to controlling "acting out" behaviors of handicapped children in elementary schools, compares the effectiveness of an operant strategy and a cognitive strategy in modifying the behavior of a seven-year-old hyperactive boy. (Author/PN)

The usefulness of operant conditioning for the special physical educator in managing behavior problems is pointed out, and steps to follow in applying operant conditioning techniques are outlined. (SB)

The essentials of learned helplessness theory are described and supporting evidence surveyed. The explanation Seligman and Maier give for these findings is critically analyzed. A schedule-shift discrimination theory of learned helplessness effects is also discussed. (Author)

Argues that a better understanding of developmental processes is provided by three types of operant research -- laboratory behavioral descriptions, descriptions of naturalistic behavior-environment interdependencies, and predictive naturalistic studies. The usefulness of these processes are examined in light of the goals of life span developmental…

Several different conceptions of the relationship between learning and development are considered in this article. It is argued that dialectical and ecological developmental orientations might provide a useful basis for synthesizing the contrasting frameworks of the operant, information processing, learning theory, and knowledge acquisition…

An operant-conditioning technique was used to teach three handicapped children (three to five years old) exhibiting echolalia to respond appropriately to a series of questions. (Author)

Results indicated that the intervention package--including instructions, feedback from an electronic device that measures motor activity, and contingent reinforcement--was successful in reducing activity in the classroom for 8 of the 11 emotionally disturbed Ss (ages 9 to 13 years). (Author/DLS)

Social feedback was investigated as a treatment strategy for reducing inappropriate verbalizations by a retarded adult in a vocational-training program. Treatment procedures were introduced as a combination of three components: praise for not verbalizing inappropriately, reprimands, and instruction. (Author)

The efficacy of teaching higher level cognitive skills to the trainable mentally retarded is questioned as research has yet to show that the skills learned can be generalized by this population to the classroom or other settings. (Author/PHR)

The findings of this study of an institutionalized schizophrenic girl indicated a functional relationship between the treatment procedure and a decrease in the rate of self-injurious behavior, although the self-injurious behavior was not entirely eliminated by the treatment procedure. (Author/DLS)

Among the findings were that the treatment procedure produced immediate and substantial suppression effects on the self-injurious behavior, which generalized to the nontraining environment and endured over an eight-month interval. (Author/DLS)

This review analyzes the origin and maintenance of self-injurious behavior, focusing on the areas of operant contingencies, sensory contingencies, and/or biological variables. It discusses definitions, prevalence, and etiology. A hypothesis is forwarded which includes components from both the operant and biological domains to explain the origin of…

The process of toilet training a boy with Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome is addressed. Emphasized are the joint effort of the teacher and parents, the frustration at the seeming lack of progress, the use of rewards and "positive practices," and the ultimate success of the boy's toilet training program. (JDD)

Experimental studies are reviewed in which stuttering and speech disfluency were subjected to response contingent stimuli (RCS). Research issues are discussed, including response-stimulus contiguity, subject awareness, behavior definitions, stimulus control of responses, subject variability, effects of RCS on nonstuttered speech parameters,…