The effectiveness of the inductive instructional method of general case programming was compared to the deductive approach of rule learning, in attempting to facilitate generalized learning and maintenance of a community living skill for adults with mental retardation. The impact of functional ability on the type of instruction was also assessed.…

This special theme issue of the journal "Perceptions" is devoted to the topic of prosocial skills training for emotionally disturbed and behavior disordered children and adolescents. Following an introductory editorial by Howard Muscott, Richard Neel discusses factors that impede the development and inclusion of comprehensive social skills…

A project provided teachers and other school personnel with a set of practical instruments for assessing students' generalizable mathematics skills in the secondary vocational training programs in Illinois. The major accomplishments of the project were advisory committee identification and selection; population and sample identification and…

This summary reports briefly on the progress of KEEP research on cognitive processes, specifically the covert verbal and visual activity of elementary school children. Preliminary research results regarding the infrequent use by children of covert verbal ability, or verbal mediational processes (unless prompted) are discussed. Informal…

Two studies explored the possibility of inducing conservation understanding in intellectually normal preschoolers and mildly mentally retarded children of comparable mental age. Retarded children, MA 3-10 to 5-0, received Verbal Rule instruction. Three- and 4-year-old children were given Verbal Rule training in a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design…

From the standpoint of transformational grammar, this experimental work evaluates the extent to which children choose or fail to generalize their rules for the placement of the negative particles "not" and "n't." The subjects were eight three- and four-year-olds of middle-class background who had been producing sentences with…

Three stages of the developing second language of a 3;9-3;11 year-old English-speaking child in an Urdu speech milieu were examined and compared with findings that have been accumulated about the order and process of first language acquisition. The study showed that in the development of many syntactic and morphological features the child used…

Theory and research regarding four levels of concept attainment and three uses of concepts as specified by the conceptual learning and development (CLD) model are described. The strategy and objectives of a longitudinal assessment of children's conceptual learning and development are presented. Perspective is provided regarding the role of the…

This study was designed to determine whether a student's level of critical thinking would be increased by exposure to programmed materials which emphasized the use of qualifying words in avoiding over-generalizations. Seventy 8th graders were randomly divided into two groups--one experimental, the other control--which were judged to be equivalent…

The greater part of this paper is dedicated to a non-technical discussion and criticism of the principles of Skinnerian behaviorism. Various aspects of the theory are examined, and its inability to deal with verbal behavior as a productive and creative activity is asserted. The author's point of view is that expressed by Noam Chomsky in his…

This study sought to determine if there is a change in information processing and channel capacity as the human organism grows older, and if this relationship is altered with a change in stimulus complexity and dimensionality of the stimulus presented. With the human organism considered as a communication system, the use of absolute judgments to…

Activities in this self-instructional module are designed to develop teacher-trainee competencies in organizing knowledge (information) for the purpose of classroom instruction. Behavioral objectives delineate the following specific competencies desired upon completion of the study: 1) the ability to distinguish between facts, concepts, and…

The norms of behavior and the expectations of a child's primary groupings were examined to determine if they were consistent with those of the larger, more impersonal society. If the norms and expectations were consistent, then primary socialization was likely to be important in shaping the child's sense of nationality. Thus, the school could be…

Nine moderately/severely retarded adolescents and young adults were trained to use coin-operated washing machines using three types of materials: artificial (pictures), simulated (cardboard replicas), and natural (realistic). Most students increased their laundry performance with all three sets of school-based material, but generalization to…

A 3-year-old (severely retarded and visually impaired) was trained in a program emphasizing functional, age-appropriate visual motor tasks requiring use of vision for successful task completion. Use of a repeated prompting procedure was successful in establishing visual attention, and generalization of visual attention to untrained tasks was…