The present study demonstrated that complex "here-and-now" affective verbalizations, basic to most experiential or therapeutic groups, could be reliably induced in a group by simple reinforcement techniques. Further, reinforcement produced levels of performance equivalent to that induced by therapists. (Author)

The 17-month (1967-1968) study summarized in this report concerned experimental analysis of the verbal behavior of disadvantaged preschool children (an interracial group of 28, ranging in age from 30 months to 42 months). Research was conducted in the verbal behavior laboratory at the University of Rochester and in a remodeled private home in a…

A withdrawn adolescent, an outpatient at a mental health clinic, was the subject for this case report. Baseline data were collected on the frequency of the subjects' verbalizations. The subject was then instructed to record his own verbal behavior. The subject "earned" his way out of the mental health clinic by increasing his verbal behavior to an…

Thirty-eight institutionalized severely and profoundly retarded blind students (11 to 26 years old) were given a 100-session taped treatment program to increase vocal utterances both qualitatively and quantitatively. Ss made significant gains in quantity of utterances as reflected in a median test. (A categorization schema for quality of preverbal…

Compared were two samples of 173 and 95 aggressive and normal 5- to 8-year-old boys on measures of verbal and cognitive development. Aggressive boys were significantly lower than normal boys on nonverbal tests but not on verbal tests. The pattern of test performance which distinguished aggressive and normal was consistent with the hypothesis that…

A battery of cognitive, personal, and demographic tests were given to 216 children from Title I (of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act) schools, with and without previous school experience, and to 31 children from non-Title I schools. The effects of prekindergarten experience upon subsequent school experience were evaluated. The Title-I…

The present report covers five studies conducted on the development of impulse control and its role in the academic achievement of lower socioeconomic status (SES) children. The studies were performed on nursery school children and first graders. Results suggested that there are several different types of impulsivity, and that only one of these is…

Rates of verbalizing by three children exhibiting moderate to severe language delays (delays of six months to two years) were increased through the systematic use of mands for verbalization, models for verbalization, and contingent positive consequences following utterances. Daily samples of each child's speech were collected during free play…

Where verbal deficits exist in children, one method of exceptional promise uses operant conditioning techniques to establish and modify verbal behavior. Modifications and extensions take place as the function of direct interaction between an experimenter and the child. Assuming that ideal teachers for such children, given the availability of…

To determine whether language behavior represents an early conditioned verbal response or whether it changes with age and experience was the purpose of this study which attempted to define unique isolates of language on the basis of actual language produced by young children. Tape recorded data were collected for 12 years from 211 children in…

Data obtained from 44 vocational teachers and 519 adult students included measures of student verbal gain, manual gain, satisfaction, and persistence, and of teachers' educational level, experience teaching adults, years of trade experience, age, mental ability, subject matter knowledge, teaching style, and number of teaching techniques used. The…

At the Child Language Development Center at the University of Rochester, basic research in children's verbal behavior and the exploration of procedures for extending successful laboratory techniques to the typical preschool setting are being continued. Experiments in contingency management and the establishment of requisite antecedent behaviors…

A. R. Luria, in his conception of the verbal control of behavior, regards four fundamental and distinctive functional attributes of the human speech system as making up a signaling system that humans alone possess: (1) the nominative role of language, (2) the generalizing or semantic role, (3) the communicative role, and (4) the role of…

Program descriptions are introduced by theories of the reasons for the apparent low IQ of many black ghetto children. The theories are the genetic, the stimulus deprivation, the expectation, and the learning-exchange theory. Five experiments with ghetto underachievers are described. The first was designed to use token exchange in a remedial class…