Three papers discuss aspects of The Ima Hogg Therapeutic School for emotionally disturbed children. The first paper addresses the school's behavior development and management system, which rewards self management with freedom in physical activity and uses individualized target behaviors designed to increase the child's acceptable social…

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)

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)

Behavior analysis in general and applied behavior analysis in particular requires a well developed, empirically supported, and useful approach to human language and cognition in order to fulfill its mission of providing a relatively adequate comprehensive account of complex human behavior. This article introduces a series of articles in which the…

This article describes a research program to develop an operant treatment for cocaine addiction in low-income, treatment-resistant methadone patients. The treatment's central feature is an abstinence reinforcement contingency in which patients earn monetary reinforcement for providing cocaine-free urine samples. Success and failure of this…

A model of conditional discrimination performance (Davison & Nevin, 1999) is combined with the notion that unmeasured attending to the sample and comparison stimuli, in the steady state and during disruption, depends on reinforcement in the same way as predicted for overt free-operant responding by behavioral momentum theory (Nevin & Grace, 2000).…

The major objectives of the 3-year Claymont Behavior Modification Project, which involved 11 teachers and 270 students, were to: a) train teachers in operant procedures for use in an uncontrived natural setting; b) accelerate student academic performances, with a special view to achieving one year's academic growth in one chronological year for…

Describes theoretical developments that have guided the interpretation of findings in a large-scale study of the development of aggression over 22 years. As the data have accumulated, they have been found to be relevant to operant formulations as well as to social learning theory and cognitive behaviorism. (Author/VM)

Behavior modification in a weight control program is examined in two models of operant and classical conditioning. Successful utilization of behavioral techniques is dependent on adherence to principles of learning, the skill and insight of the clinician, and the sensitivity to the individual needs of each client. (JN)

Describes a classroom demonstration using differential reinforcement to shape student participation in a small psychology laboratory. Concludes that the technique was useful for illustrating how reinforcers shape behavior. Suggests that the demonstration facilitated understanding of operant conditioning procedures and encouraged more equitable…

A series of experiments introduced interruptions to the execution phase of simple Tower of London problems and found that the opportunity for preparation before the break in task reduced the time cost at resumption. Retrieval of the suspended goal was facilitated when participants were given the opportunity to encode retrieval cues during an…

Describes a community treatment program cojointly administered by a New Mexico local school district, university, and mental health center. The program is designed to facilitate the adoption of personal and academic skills among profoundly behaviorally disordered adolescents. (Author/CM)

To convince my students they are surrounded by social psychology, we attended a minor league hockey game. During the next class period I asked students to write a brief paragraph about their experiences. From those paragraphs I chose four reoccurring themes to analyze from a social psychological perspective. My introductory classes and I benefited…

Psychology students frequently have misconceptions of basic concepts in operant conditioning. Prior classroom observations revealed that most students defined positive reinforcement as reward and equated negative reinforcement and punishment. Students also labeled positive reinforcement as rewarding good behavior and negative reinforcement as…

This paper presents Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior as a framework for understanding language acquisition in children with autism. We describe Skinner's analysis of pure and impure verbal operants and illustrate how this analysis may be applied to the design of communication training programs. The picture exchange communication system…