Cultural deprivation has been found to affect the acquisition, development, and utilization of language for the child. The influences of environmental variables on language patterns are discussed as a series of conditioned responses reinforced in the developmental process. (Author)

Examined relationships among locus of control, specificity of instruction, and verbal conditionalibity on self-referenced affect in a counseling analogue interview. Results indicated that specific instructions combined with verbal conditioning procedures produced the greatest increase in self-referenced affect for both internal and external…

Staddon and Motheral derived a mathematical model of responding in concurrent variable-interval--variable-interval schedules. Their derivation ignores a fundamental aspect of the concurrent schedule contingency. A reinforcer can occur following two consecutive responses on the same schedule or following a switch between the two schedules.…

Heyman's major criticism (TM 504 810) of Staddon and Motheral's reinforcement maximization model is that it does not consider "local" and "interchangeover" interresponse times separately. We show that this separation may not be necessary. Heyman's apparent gain in comprehensiveness may not be worth the added complexity.…

Findings provide no evidence that parent training classes in behavior modification and effective communication produce substantial differences in outcome. Interpersonal needs, rather than the type of educational module, dictate the tendency for persons to remain in the training program. (Author)

The obtained contrast effect was conducive to learning, and the procedure was effective in teaching the multiply handicapped hearing impaired Ss to speechread the training words. (Author/DLS)

Eight institutionalized male juvenile delinquents participated in a 13 session course on principles and techniques of self-management. The course was conducted in the Visual Response System, a specially designed classroom in which each student responds on an overhead projector built into his desk. (Author)

Acting on the premise that she was teaching her son a task, each of 30 mothers selected consequences for her child's errors. In actuality, feedback to the mother regarding her son's performance was experimentally manipulated. Results showed that differential conditioning of both high and low maternal punitiveness could be achieved by using the…

Three experiments examined the memory-preserving effects of reactivation and reinstatement reminders following 6-month-olds' learning and forgetting of an operant task. Findings indicated that a single reactivation reminder extended infants' memory of an operant mobile task for 2 weeks, a single reinstatement extended it for 4 weeks. A single…

Hearing assessments of multiply handicapped children/adolescents were conducted using classical conditioning (with an air puff as unconditioned stimulus) and operant conditioning (with a modified visual reinforcement audiometry procedure or edible reinforcement). Findings indicate that classical conditioning was successful with 21 of the 23…

A detailed description of a layered network model is provided, with computer simulations of key associative learning phenomena and predictions generated from the model. The model is compared to more conventional theories of learning to learn and configural learning. (SLD)

Five profoundly mentally retarded adolescents and adults were taught to respond to an auditory-visual complex stimulus. Later, the auditory component alone was presented, and three subjects did not respond. These subjects then received a fading program which successfully established auditory stimulus control with two subjects. (MSE)

A survey of 55 Louisiana members of the American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR) indicated disagreement with an AAMR position statement condemning inhumane forms of aversive therapy. AAMR is urged to reconsider its position concerning the scope of aversive therapy, need for further research, and use of aversive therapy with some…

Evidence that the vigor of the startle reflex varies systematically with the organism's emotional state is reviewed. A theory elucidating this relationship suggests how amplitude of eyeblink response to a probe may be modulated by affective content of perception and thought. Implications for research on emotion are outlined. (SLD)

Four young children were taught contact lens wear using a shaping procedure, which involved praise and tangibles for compliance and time-outs or restraint for noncompliance. At followup, levels of compliance were high for three children, while a subject with Down's syndrome showed low compliance with need for physical restraint throughout.…