A study found verbal reprimands, delivered contingent upon eating prohibited foods, were sufficient to decease the food stealing of a girl (age 14) with Prader-Willi syndrome. Warning stimuli were then successfully used to help her discriminate between permitted/prohibited foods during sessions in which food stealing was not directly observed.…

We tested the effect of multiple exemplar instruction (MEI) on acquisition of joint spelling responses, vocal to written and vice versa, for three sets of five words by four kindergarteners with language delays using a delayed multiple probe design. First, students were taught to spell Set 1 as either vocal or written responses (two vocal and two…

Describes a study to develop and cross validate a verbal measure of information rate. This measure should be helpful in assessing the information rate of situations, whether the situations are described verbally, presented pictorally or with audiovisual recordings, or experienced directly by subjects. (Author/MLB)

By utilizing reinforcing and punishing light cues the verbal output and leadership status of Target Ss in a four-person group was manipulated. There were three conditions: Control (no light cues used); Agree, where Non-Target Ss were reinforced for agreeing with the Target, and punished for all other verbalizations; and Disagree, where Non-Target…

The author presents a summary of selected theoretical concepts and empirical evidence from the field of psychology, relating to the meaning of the term "meaning." He first summarizes experimental techniques for the investigation of meaning in terms of six approaches: conditioning methods, word association methods, word association/verbal learning…

A counselor social reinforcement scale, based on the verbal conditioning model and the assumption that approval is a basic interpersonal reinforcer, and a counselor persuasion scale, based on the assumption that counselor conviction and client agreement with the counselor are the central aspects of counselor persuasiveness, were devised.…

The relative weakness of sex-role labels as reinforcers, and the disappearance of differential effectiveness of male and female labels at the fourth-grade level would appear to be congruent with Kohlberg's (1966) cognitively based theory of sex-role acquisition. (Authors)

Discusses the influence of psychology and linguistics on recent methodologies in second language teaching. (DS)