INTENDED FOR BOTH THE COLLEGE STUDENT AND THE PROFESSIONAL SPEECH PATHOLOGIST, THE BOOK PRESENTS CURRENT LEARNING THEORIES CONCERNING STUTTERING, DATA IMPORTANT TO THE THEORIES, AND A 2-PROCESS THEORY OF LEARNING FOR THEORETICAL INTEGRATION OF THE DATA ON STUTTERING AND FOR THERAPEUTIC MODIFICATION. INFORMATION PRESENTED ABOUT BEHAVIORISTIC…

Dr. Simon Belasco's paper "Programmed Instruction and the Psychology of Second Language Learning" explores basic assumptions held by curriculum designers and teachers concerning the possibility of second language acquisition in an artificial, unicultural, and contrived classroom environment. Concepts relating to scope and sequence, New Key…

An experiement was conducted to test the hypothesis that interest inventory items would function as reinforcing stimuli in a visual discrimination task. When previously rated liked and disliked items from the Strong Vocational Interest Blank were differentially presented following one of two responses, subjects learned to respond to the stimulus…

This paper is structured in the form of a dialog between its two authors. It chronicles the life of Eric Hoffer, a self-taught philosopher and San Francisco longshoreman. Hoffer wrote "The True Believer" (1951), eight other books, and many articles. The paper describes his working life and the influences that led him to write on such…

Four groups of moderately retarded 7- to 13-year-old children (N =4 in each group) were trained to respond to a triangle with apex up (S+) and not to a triangle with apex down (S-), with and without errors. (Author)

Relaxation and semantic desensitization were used to alleviate the fear of phobic females. Results showed that semantic desensitization, alone or in combination with relaxation, failed to modify the evaluative meanings evoked by the feared object. (SE)

Sounds a cautionary note about the advances being made in operant conditioning and describes how behaviorism might be used to control people by stripping them of their freedom and dignity. (RB)

The purpose of the current article is to highlight the importance of operant techniques in developmental research. Although many researchers employ operant techniques within their individual fields of study, the pervasive nature of these techniques is not often acknowledged in the general literature. The present article describes the history of…

An investigation of the applicability of behavior modification techniques to the operant crying behaviors (OCBs) in a regular kindergarten classroom was conducted. With baseline, reinforcement, and extinction conditions, the OCBs of two 5-year-old subjects were significantly decreased between baseline and reinforcement conditions. (Author/CS)

Children's avoidance responses were conditioned and then extinguished in a laboratory analog of a social threat situation. (DP)

Describes the use of systematic desensitization with a group to reduce anxiety about public speaking. (EJT)

Depression in a college population was found to be correlated with small changes in many activities rather than with the large reductions in overt behavior reported for clinically depressed individuals. Results of the study suggest the possibility of an operant component in maintaining depressive behavior. (Author)

In this study a signalling device and counter were used to provide immediate reinforcement for appropriate behavior. The results suggested the apparatus could be a useful addition to the repertoire of school personnel for the modification of inappropriate classroom behavior. (Author/BW)

Forty-five youngsters rehearsed one of three types of mediating response, involving different types of sentences. Analyses revealed that different training significantly influenced duration and intensity settings, with the "competence" group generally superior to the "stimulus" and "neutral" verbalization groups. (Author)