Behavior analysis of child development
Encyclopedia
Child development in behavior analytic theory has origins in John B. Watson
's behaviorism
. Watson wrote extensively on child development and conducted research (see Little Albert experiment
). Watson was instrumental in the modification of William James
' stream of consciousness approach to construct a stream of behavior theory
. Watson also helped bring a natural science perspective to child psychology by introducing objective research methods based on observable and measurable behavior. Following Watson's lead, B.F. Skinner further extended this model to cover operant conditioning
and verbal behavior. In doing this, Skinner's radical behaviorism
focused the science on private events such as thinking and feeling and how they are shaped by interacting with the environment. Bijou (1955) was the first to bring this approach to human children.
in the home economics/family life department, Sidney Bijou and Donald Baer
began to apply behavior analytic principles to child development in an area referred to as "Behavioral Development" or "Behavior Analysis of Child Development". Skinner's behavioral approach and Kantor's interbehavioral approach was adopted in Bijou and Baer's model. Bijou and Baer created a three-stage model of development (e.g., basic, foundational, and societal). In behavior analysis, the stages are neither essential nor explanatory. They posit that these stages are socially determined, although behavior analysts tend to focus much more on change points or cusps (behavioral cusp
) rather than stages. While not all cusps result in a stage change, all stage changes do involve cusps. In the behavioral model, development is represented as behavior change and is dependent on a combination of factors including the level/kind of stimulation, behavioral function, and the learning/genetic history of the organism. This model is closer to Skinner's model than Watson's in that it rejects the idea of a purely passive organism. Behavior analysis in child development is between mechanistic and contextual, pragmatic approaches.
From its inception, the behavioral model has been focused on prediction and control of the developmental process. The model focuses on analysis of a behavior and then attempts to prove the analysis by synthesizing the behavior. The model was greatly enhanced by basic research on the matching law
of choice behavior developed by Richard J. Herrnstein, especially in the study of reinforcement in the natural environment as related to antisocial behavior. As the behavioral model has become increasingly more complex and focused on metatheory, it has become concerned with how behavior is selected over time and forms into stable patterns of responding. A detailed history of this model was written by Pelaez. In 1995, Henry D. Schlinger, Jr. provided the first behavior analytic text since Bijou and Baer comprehensively showed how behavior analysis—a natural science approach to human behavior—can be used to understand existing research in child development. In addition, the Quantitative Behavioral Developmental Model by Commons and Miller is the first behavioral theory and research to address notion similar to stage.
Behavior analytic models of child development
use multiple research methods to adequately answer the posed research question. Graphical representation of data is considered crucial. Single-subject research
remains the hallmark of the approach with a longitudinal study
follow up. Current research is focused on integrating single-subject designs through meta-analysis to determine the effect sizes of behavioral factors in development. Lag sequential analysis has become popular for tracking the stream of behavior during observations. Increasingly, groups designs have also been employed. Model construction research involves latent growth modeling
to determine developmental trajectories and structural equation modeling
, which determines the probabilities of venturing down specific paths. Rasch (1980) Analysis is now widely used to show sequentiality within a developmental trajectory.
One issue in methodology that was a particularly important discovery was the use of observational methods combined with lag sequential analysis to determine reinforcement
in the natural setting.
recognizes the role of uncertainty and that infants have a limited repertoire for communicating its needs. Actions which produce responding on the parents' part are highly valued. Because of this, contingent relationships are at the very heart of behavior analytic theory.
The importance of contingency appears to be highlighted in other developmental theories; however, many traditional developmental psychologists fail to recognize that contingency needs to be determined by two factors. These factors are not just the efficiency of the action but the efficiency of the act compared to all other acts that the infant may perform at that point. By learning these contingent relationships, infants and adults are able to function within their environment. In fact, research has shown that contingent relationships lead to more emotionally satisfying relationships.
As early as the 1960s, behavioral research showed that parental responsiveness toward the infant on separation predicted identified outcomes in the "stranger situation" and modified versions of this preparation. In one study, six 8- to 10-month-old infants participated in four test conditions. The study was a classic reversal design (see single-subject research
) and assessed infant approach rate to a stranger. If attention was based on stranger avoidance, the infant avoided the stranger. If attention was placed on infant approach, the infant approached the stranger.
Recent meta-analytic studies of this model of attachment based on contingency found a moderate effect size, which increased to a large effect size when the quality of reinforcement was considered. Recent research on contingencies highlights the matching quality and places it in the dyadic context. In addition, such studies have shown that contingencies can affect the development of both pro-social and anti-social behavior. Training parents to become sensitive to the function of children's behavior and to respond behaviorally has resulted in a large effect size. Thus, attachment problems seem to be related to parents inadvertently reinforcing children to protest on separation. Meta-analyic research supports the notion that attachment is operant-based learning.
An infant's sensitivity to contingencies can be affected by biological factors. This, in conjunction with being placed in erratic environments which contain few contingencies, can set the child up to have conduct problems, and lack of contingencies in the environment can lead to depression (see Behavioral Development and Depression below). Research continues to look at the effects of learning-based attachment on moral development
, and has found that erratic use of contingencies by parents early in life can produce devastating effects later for the child.
was able to show that children's stepping reflex disappears as a function of increased physical weight but if infants are placed in water, it returns. This offered a plausible model for the continuity of the stepping reflex and thus the progressive stimulation model of the behavior analysts.
Indeed, infants deprived
of physical stimulation
or the opportunity to respond were found to have delayed motor development. Under conditions of extra stimulation, the motor behavior of these children rapidly improved. One area of research has shown that treadmilling can be beneficial to children with motor delays including Down syndrome
and cerebral palsy. Research on opportunity to respond and the building of motor development continues today.
The behavioral development model of motor activity has produced a number of techniques including operant-based biofeedback to facilitate development with success. Some of the stimulation methods such as operant-based biofeedback
have been applied as treatment to children with cerebral palsy
and even spinal injury successfully. Brucker's group demonstrated that specific operant conditioning-based biofeedback procedures can be effective in establishing more efficient use of remaining and surviving central nervous system cells after injury or after birth complications as in cerebral palsy. While such methods are not a cure and gains tend to be in the moderate range, they do show ability to enhance functioning.
including automatic reinforcement.
B.F. Skinner was one of the first psychologists to take the role of imitation in verbal behavior as a serious mechanism for acquisition. He identified the echoic as one of his basic verbal operants and postulated that verbal behavior was learned by an infant from a verbal community. Skinner's account takes verbal behavior beyond an intra-individual process to an inter-individual process. Of particular interest is that he even defined verbal behavior as "behavior reinforced through the mediation of others". Skinner's book was replied to by Noam Chomsky
. Initial behavioral replies were late but included: (1) comments on Chomsky's lack of understanding of behaviorism and the concept of the response class; (2) comprehensive reviews of the science and what still needs to be demonstrated; (3) historical and linguistic looks at the debate to place it in context; and (4) philosophy of science discussions for clarifying the differences. Myths have developed around behaviorism
, for example suggesting behaviorism rejects biology, even a cursory read of Skinner (1981) shows that not to be the case. Four typical linguistic arguments all seem not to be valid: (1) the poverty of the stimulus; (2) negative feedback is negligible; and (3) input does not predict later output. Much of the research exposing these myths was reviewed in Moerk (1996) and readers are referred to that paper.
Research has presented a compelling case that environmental factors are important in the acquisition of verbal behavior. Observational learning
and imitation
play particularly important roles in language learning. Research seems to support the notion that imitation is progressive In general, research supports the three-term contingency patterns suggested by behavior analysts In addition, reinforcement appears to have a role. Meta-analysis has shown that there even seems to be a large role for corrections. Meork (1994) conducted a meta-analysis of 40 studies and found substantial evidence that corrections played a role. From this work, corrections are not only abundant but contingent on the mistakes of the child.
In the behavioral model, the child is prepared to contact the contingencies for "joining" the listener and speaker. At the very core, verbal episodes involve rotation of speaker and listener exchanges between individuals and even within the same person. These exchanges what has been termed the conversational units and have been the focus of considerable research at Columbia's communication disorders department.
Conversational units may be one of the strongest measures of socialization in that they consists of verbal interactions in which each party in a turn-taking exchange is reinforced as both speaker and listener. Chu (1998) demonstrated contextual conditions for inducing and expanding conversational units between children with autism and non-handicapped siblings in two separate experiments. The acquisition of conversational units and the expansion of verbal behavior decrease incidences of physical "aggression" in the Chu study and several other reviews suggest similar effects. The joining of the listener and speaker progresses from listener speaker rotations with others as a likely precedent for the three major components of speaker-as-own listener—say so correspondence, self-talk conversational units, and naming.
), the statement "I am" emerges. Through the reinforcement on many statements such as "I am", "I feel", and "I think", gradually the "I" abstracts out. This model has not received much research attention; however, it does explain various forms of psychopathology with difficulties in the emerging "self" such as insecurity, narcissistic personality disorders, borderline personality disorder
s, etc. It holds that the forms of pathology come from frequent invalidations of the above defined statements so that the "I" does not emerge.
The above model has created a unique treatment called functional analytic psychotherapy
for such disorders.
Other behavior analytic models for personality disorders exist. They trace out the complex biological–environmental interaction for the development of avoidant and borderline personality disorders. They focus on Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory, which states that some individuals are more or less sensitive to reinforcement than others. Nelson-Grey views problematic response classes as being maintained by reinforcing consequences or through rule governance.
by itself did not increase pro-social behavior; however, modeling is much more effective than instruction-giving such as "preaching". The role of rewards has been implicated in the building of self-control and empathy. Cooperation seems particularly susceptible to rewards. Sharing is another pro-social behavior influenced by reinforcement. Reinforcement
is particularly effective, at least early in the learning series, if context conditions are similar. Evidence exists to show some generalization. While reinforcement is generally accepted, the role of punishment has been more controversial.
An interesting batch of studies exist in the research on the role of punishment. One study found that donation rates of children could be increased by punishing episodes of failure to donate.
The socialization process continues by teachers and by peers with reinforcement and punishment playing major roles. Peers are more likely to punish cross-gender play and reinforce play specific to gender. Older studies found that teachers were more likely to reinforce dependent behavior in females. Such patterns have been found to contribute to gender differences at least in the short run.
Behavioral principles have also been researched in emerging peer groups with focus on status. Such research has found that neglected boys are the least interactive and aversive, yet remain relatively unknown in groups. In addition, this research suggests that it takes different social skills to enter groups than to maintain or build status in groups. Other research has found that withdrawn behavior can be decreased with a corresponding increase in social interactions for children.
In short, children have been shown to imitate peers. One study reported on average 13 imitative acts per child and hour. In addition, peers frequently reinforce each other's behavior. Among the aspects of social development responsive to peer reinforcement are sex-typed behavior, modes of initiating interaction, and aggression. This led to comprehensive behavioral models for moral and social behavior.
Recent efforts by Pelaez-Nogueras & Gewirtz (1995) are of interest in the generation of a comprehensive behavioral development model of moral and social behavior. Their behavior-analytical approach to a comprehensive model highlights how the basic behavioral processes are thought to be involved in the acquisition and maintenance of early moral behavior patterns. Their analysis emphasizes that what has been termed "moral" behavior of an individual is ultimately the result of a history of socio-environmental contingencies affected by the consequences of that individual's behavior. They illustrated how the operant-learning paradigm with its emphasis on action and extrinsic stimuli, can account for much moral behavior as an outcome of conditioning processes. In this analysis, various processes are proposed for pre- and post-language acquisition individuals, taking into account behaviors that are public or private, non-verbal or verbal, and that may denote altruism, empathy, self-sacrifice, sharing, caring, conscience, justice, loyalty, or virtue. In this conceptual work, they noted the distinction between direct contingency-shaped behavior and rule-governed behavior in which moral behavior is seen initially as under the control of nonverbal direct contingencies in pre-linguistic children. Later, with advances in the child's language skills, much of that behavior is seen as coming under the control of verbal explicit rules (including both those that are self-formulated and those provided by others). This behavior analytic approach details the features of the operant-learning paradigm efficiently to explain the very same phenomena in the moral realm; that behavioral, cognitive, and mental theories have targeted at the same time that it attempts to fill in details that cognitive-developmental postulates seem to require. Moreover, this work offered a basic behavior analytic explanation of moral phenomena not previously analyzed. They emphasized behavioral outcomes as well as antecedent and concurrent verbalizations of those behaviors (including verbal reasoning and moral judgment that have been the study matter of cognitive-developmental theories); the model may provide some leads on how to deal with overt actions in the moral realm.
Children with social problems do appear to benefit from behavior therapy and behavior modification
based on behavior analytic principles (see Applied Behavior Analysis
). For example, modeling has been used to increase participation by shy and withdrawn children. One of the strongest effects seems to be shaping of socially desirable behavior through positive reinforcement.
). Such models have consistently found a role for escape conditioning through the use of coercive behavior as having a powerful effect on the development and use of future anti-social tactics. From this view, anti-social behavior can be seen as functional for the child in moment to moment interactions. The rate of pro-social tactics used to anti-social tactics used during conflicts is directly proportional to the payoff. This model explains 76% of the variance in child's chosen tactics and over 56% of the variance in the parents' chosen tactics. Finally, the tactic payoff model was replicated and shown to predict arrest rates two years later. (For a complete review see (Synder (2002)). Interventions based on this model are developing as enhancements to the typical behavioral parent training model.
The role of stimulus control
has also been extensively explored in the development of anti-social behavior. Using lag sequential analysis, researchers have been able to describe the immediate impact of one person's behavior on another in the family. Such patterns showed that overlearning was so rampant that the behavior was automatic and cognitive awareness was neither necessary nor sufficient to explain the interactions.
Recent behavioral focus in the study of anti-social behavior has been a focus on rule-governed behavior. While correspondence for saying and doing has long been an interest for behavior analysts in normal development and typical socialization, recent conceptualizations have been built around families that actively train children in anti-social rules as well as children who fail to develop rule control.
. A later revision was provided by Peter Lewisohn and Hyman Hops. Hops continued the work on the role of negative reinforcement in maintaining depression with Anthony Biglan. Additional factors such as the role of loss of contingent relations through extinction and punishment were taken from early work of Martin Seligman. The most recent summary and conceptual revisions of the behavioral model was provided by Johnathan Kanter. The standard model is that depression has multiple paths to develop. It can be generated by five basic processes, including: lack or loss of positive reinforcement, direct positive or negative reinforcement for depressive behavior, lack of rule-governed behavior or too much rule-governed behavior, and/or too much environmental punishment
. For children, some of these variables could set the pattern for life-long problems. For example, a child whose depressive behavior functions for negative reinforcement by stopping fighting between parents could develop a life-long pattern of depressive behavior in the case of conflicts. Two paths that are particularly important are (1) lack or loss of reinforcement because of missing necessary skills at a developmental cusp point or (2) the failure to develop adequate rule-governed behavior. For the latter, the child could develop a pattern of always choosing the short-term small immediate reward (i.e., escaping studying for a test) at the expense of the long-term larger reward (passing courses in middle school). The treatment approach that emerged from this research is called behavioral activation
.
In addition, use of positive reinforcement has been shown to improve symptoms of depression in children. Reinforcement has also been shown to improve the self-concept in children with depression comorbid with learning difficulties. Rawson and Tabb (1993) used reinforcement with 99 students (90 males and 9 females) aged from 8 to 12 with behavior disorders in a residential treatment program and showed significant reduction in depression symptoms compared to the control group.
In one study using this model, students' time of instruction was compared in affluent schools to poorer schools. Actual amount of instruction received revealed that poorer schools lost on average about 15 minutes per day in instruction due to issues of classroom management
and behavior management
issues. This compiled to two years worth of lost instructional time by grade 10. The goal of such behavior analytic research is to provide methods for reducing the overall number of children who fall into the retardation range of development by behavioral engineering
.
Probably the most extensive study to date has been the work of Hart and Risely (1995, 1999). These authors contrasted the rates of parent communication with children at the age of 2–4 years and correlated it with IQ scores for children at age 9. The research showed that the more parents spoke to children, the higher the IQ was, even after controlling for race, class, and socio-economic status. The authors reached the conclusion that to change IQ scores significantly, an interventionist would need to work with children at risk for close to 40 hours a week. As pointed out in the Bell Curve
, no program to date has been effective in the long-term change of IQ scores and producing significant corresponding changes in social class.
, stimulus class analysis (sometimes referred to as recombinative generalization), stimulus equivalence, and response class analysis. Of particular interest is the analysis of the response class. Multiple processes for class-like formation provide behavior analysts with relatively pragmatic explanations for common issues of novelity and generalization.
Responses organize in a form assembled by the particular form need to fit the environmental challenge at hand. Thus, the forms of the responses organize by responses functional consequences. Such large response classes can merge as in the case of contingency adduction. Much more research needs to be done on the issue of contingency adduction, especially with a focus on how large classes of concepts shift. For example, as Piaget
pointed out have a tendency at the pre-operational stage to have limits to their ability to conserver (Piaget & Szeminska, 1952). While training children to develop conservation skills has been generally successful, it is by no means easy. Behavior analysts argue that this is largely due to the number of tool skills that need to be developed and integrated. Adduction offers a process by which such skills can be synthesized and hence warrants further attention, particularly by early interventionists. Even with this said, children who learn to conserve early do not appear to have any other life benefit from the learning process. This brings up questions of the relevance of Piaget's model to development.
. Ferster's model saw autism as a by-product of social interactions between parent and child. Ferster presented an analysis of how a variety of contingencies of reinforcement between parent and child during the early years might establish and strengthen a repertoire of behaviors typically seen in children diagnosed with autism. A similar model was proposed by Drash and Tutor (1993). They developed the contingency-shaped or behavioral incompatibility theory of autism. They identify at least six reinforcement
paradigms that may contribute to significant deficiency in verbal behavior that they identified and analyzed in their research with children diagnosed as autistic. They held that each of these paradigms may concurrently create a repertoire of avoidance responses that could contribute to the establishment of a repertoire of behavior that would be incompatible with the acquisition of age-appropriate verbal behavior.
More recent models attribute autism
to neurological and sensory models that play out overtime to produce the autistic repertoire. Lovaas and Smith (1989) proposed that children with autism have a mismatch between their nervous systems and the environment. Bijou and Ghezzi (1999) proposed a behavioral interference theory. However, some recent evidence for the environmental mismatch model was recently reviewed as well as the inference model. From this article, it appears that some support exists to suggest that the development of ausitic behaviors are due to escape and avoidance of certain types of sensory stimuli. What seems to be the common feature of the behavioral models for autism, is the stunning lack of research conducted on them. At this point, they remain mostly speculation. For intervention see Natural language procedures
.
techniques, a task analysis of curriculum, and combined them with rule learning to produce the Direct Instruction
curriculum (see DISTAR
). In addition, Fred S. Keller
used similar techniques to develop programmed instruction
. Skinner developed a programmed instruction curriculum for teaching hand writing. One of Skinner's students, Ogden Lindsley
, developed a standardized semilogrithmic chart, the "Standard Behavior Chart" now "Standard Celeration Chart" for recording frequencies of behavior, and to allow direct visual comparisons of such frequencies and changes in those frequencies, termed "celeration". Use of this charting tool for analysis of instructional effect or other environmental variable by direct measurement of learner performance has become known as precision teaching
.
Behavior analysts with a behavioral development focus form the basis of a movement that has come to be termed positive behavior support
(PBS). PBS has been focused on building safe schools.
In education, there are many different kinds of learning that are required for later interaction in the world. Such aspects of learning include social and language. These different areas of development are crucial for a growing child. And as technology continues to increase, its power has been spread to all areas. Technology can be used for good but too much of a good thing can have negative effects on a child or person. According to the NWREL (Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory), too much technology will hinder a child's social interactions with others. There is always a fear that later in life, this early computer interaction will become an addiction and lead to anti-social behavior. Not only is education and technology a big factor in child development, language always plays a big role. Language development doesn't seem to have the same need for technology as social development does but studies show that some technology helps motor skills develop more efficiently. It is said that by the age of 18 months, a child will start to learn and know about 5–20 different words. It is then understood that once the child knows these words, they go explore in the world and get a better understanding of this world.
Behavior analytic theories have been criticized for focusing on explaining the acquisition of relatively simple behavior (the behavior of nonhuman species, of infants, and of individuals who are intellectually disabled or autistic) rather than complex behavior (see Commons & Miller). Michael Commons
continued behavior analysis's rejecting of mentalism and substituted a task analysis
of the particular skills to be learned. This approach shows that more complex behaviors combine and sequence less complex behaviors. This fact of hierarchical organization may be used to define the nature of stage and stage transition. In his new model, he has created a behavior analytic model of more complex behavior in line with more contemporary quantitative behavior analytic models. He calls this the Model of Hierarchical Complexity. Commons constructed the Model of Hierarchical Complexity of tasks and their corresponding stages of performance using basically just three main axioms (see Model of Hierarchical Complexity
).
In the study of development, recent work has been generated around combining behavior analytic views with dynamical systems theory. The added benefit of this approach is that it shows how small patterns of changes in behavior in terms of principles and mechanisms over time can produce substantial changes in development.
Current research in behavior analysis attempts to extend the patterns learned in childhood and to determine their impact on adult development
.
There were twenty-four Romanian orphans that were followed after adoption. These children stayed in the orphanage for at least eight months of the first year of their life. Also children in this group were monitored to see if they were favored by the workers at the orphanage, to see if they received special care or attention. The twenty-four Canadian-born children were set up as a control group. These children were born in traditional nuclear families. These were not Romanian children; the only thing they had in common with their counterpart was exact age and gender. The third group was a smaller variable group where the researchers looked at eleven children that had been adopted from the orphanage less than four months from birth. These children were picked to determine if the amount of time in the orphanage had any effect on development at all.
When the children were on average, two researchers would interview the parents and the child separately. The parents were interviewed to determine the type of environment in which the child had lived. The child was given a Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scale IQ test. The preconception was that the Romanian group would score lower than both the Canadian group and the early adopted. The results show that the Romanian children have what is considered healthy brain activity, but show a deficiency in higher power motor skills and cognitive processes. This supports the researchers' claims that early childhood institutionalization directly affects the cognitive development of a child.
The early adoption group proved little results against either group. All eleven children in the group scored in between the Romanian and the Canadian groups in the IQ tests, yet there were not enough subjects in the group to give it credibility. But, one can take from this data that adoption before four months does increase the child's chances of cognitive growth.
International has a special interest group for the behavior analysis of child development.
Doctoral level behavior analysts who are psychologists belong to American Psychological Association
's division 25: Behavior analysis.
The World Association for Behavior Analysis has a certification in behavior therapy. The exam draws questions on behavioral theories of child development as well as behavioral theories of child psychopathology.
Journal
John B. Watson
John Broadus Watson was an American psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviorism. Watson promoted a change in psychology through his address Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it which was given at Columbia University in 1913...
's behaviorism
Behaviorism
Behaviorism , also called the learning perspective , is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do—including acting, thinking, and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors, and that psychological disorders are best treated by altering behavior...
. Watson wrote extensively on child development and conducted research (see Little Albert experiment
Little Albert experiment
The Little Albert experiment was a case study showing empirical evidence of classical conditioning in humans. This study was also an example of stimulus generalization. It was conducted in 1920 by John B. Watson along with his assistant Rosalie Rayner. The study was done at Johns Hopkins...
). Watson was instrumental in the modification of William James
William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
' stream of consciousness approach to construct a stream of behavior theory
Learning theory (education)
In psychology and education, learning is commonly defined as a process that brings together cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences and experiences for acquiring, enhancing, or making changes in one's knowledge, skills, values, and world views . Learning as a process focuses on what...
. Watson also helped bring a natural science perspective to child psychology by introducing objective research methods based on observable and measurable behavior. Following Watson's lead, B.F. Skinner further extended this model to cover operant conditioning
Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning is a form of psychological learning during which an individual modifies the occurrence and form of its own behavior due to the association of the behavior with a stimulus...
and verbal behavior. In doing this, Skinner's radical behaviorism
Radical behaviorism
Radical behaviorism is a philosophy developed by B.F. Skinner that underlies the experimental analysis of behavior approach to psychology. The term radical behaviorism applies to a particular school that emerged during the reign of behaviorism...
focused the science on private events such as thinking and feeling and how they are shaped by interacting with the environment. Bijou (1955) was the first to bring this approach to human children.
History
In the 1960s, while at the University of KansasUniversity of Kansas
The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...
in the home economics/family life department, Sidney Bijou and Donald Baer
Donald Baer
Donald M. Baer was a psychologist who contributed to the applied behavior analysis movement and pioneered the development of behavior analysis at two separate institutions. Dr. Baer is best known for his contributions at the University of Kansas. Throughout his career, he published over two...
began to apply behavior analytic principles to child development in an area referred to as "Behavioral Development" or "Behavior Analysis of Child Development". Skinner's behavioral approach and Kantor's interbehavioral approach was adopted in Bijou and Baer's model. Bijou and Baer created a three-stage model of development (e.g., basic, foundational, and societal). In behavior analysis, the stages are neither essential nor explanatory. They posit that these stages are socially determined, although behavior analysts tend to focus much more on change points or cusps (behavioral cusp
Behavioral cusp
A behavioral cusp is any behavior change that brings an organism's behavior into contact with new contingencies that have far-reaching consequences...
) rather than stages. While not all cusps result in a stage change, all stage changes do involve cusps. In the behavioral model, development is represented as behavior change and is dependent on a combination of factors including the level/kind of stimulation, behavioral function, and the learning/genetic history of the organism. This model is closer to Skinner's model than Watson's in that it rejects the idea of a purely passive organism. Behavior analysis in child development is between mechanistic and contextual, pragmatic approaches.
From its inception, the behavioral model has been focused on prediction and control of the developmental process. The model focuses on analysis of a behavior and then attempts to prove the analysis by synthesizing the behavior. The model was greatly enhanced by basic research on the matching law
Matching law
In operant conditioning, the matching law is a quantitative relationship that holds between the relative rates of response and the relative rates of reinforcement in concurrent schedules of reinforcement...
of choice behavior developed by Richard J. Herrnstein, especially in the study of reinforcement in the natural environment as related to antisocial behavior. As the behavioral model has become increasingly more complex and focused on metatheory, it has become concerned with how behavior is selected over time and forms into stable patterns of responding. A detailed history of this model was written by Pelaez. In 1995, Henry D. Schlinger, Jr. provided the first behavior analytic text since Bijou and Baer comprehensively showed how behavior analysis—a natural science approach to human behavior—can be used to understand existing research in child development. In addition, the Quantitative Behavioral Developmental Model by Commons and Miller is the first behavioral theory and research to address notion similar to stage.
Research methods
The nature of the measurements is of critical importance to behavior analysts studying child development. The measurement categories can be and often are narrow such as smiling or out of seat or broad response classes. The choice of issue to be studied has implications for both interval consistency and temporal stability of the measure. Gewirtz (1969) discussed that behaviors composing "trait" should show internal consistency, temporal stability, and even situational consistency, but only internal consistency would be expected for a behavior which is part of a response class. In addition, response characteristics can also be the basis for a scoring system. For example, Goetz and Baer (1973) were assessing the uniqueness of children's block play. The children in the study used quite different building strategies: (1) generating few, highly elaborate constructions; (2) many simple construction strategies; or (3) a mixture of (1) and (2). Thus a summary response score needed to be created weighing the number of responses, complexity, and uniqueness. This summary score was needed even though uniqueness was the primary focus of the study.Behavior analytic models of child development
Child development
Child development stages describe theoretical milestones of child development. Many stage models of development have been proposed, used as working concepts and in some cases asserted as nativist theories....
use multiple research methods to adequately answer the posed research question. Graphical representation of data is considered crucial. Single-subject research
Single-subject research
Single-subject research is a group of research methods that are used extensively in the experimental analysis of behavior and applied behavior analysis with both human and non-human participants. Four principal methods in this type of research are: changing criterion, reversal , alternating...
remains the hallmark of the approach with a longitudinal study
Longitudinal study
A longitudinal study is a correlational research study that involves repeated observations of the same variables over long periods of time — often many decades. It is a type of observational study. Longitudinal studies are often used in psychology to study developmental trends across the...
follow up. Current research is focused on integrating single-subject designs through meta-analysis to determine the effect sizes of behavioral factors in development. Lag sequential analysis has become popular for tracking the stream of behavior during observations. Increasingly, groups designs have also been employed. Model construction research involves latent growth modeling
Latent growth modeling
Latent growth modeling is a statistical technique used in the structural equation modeling framework to estimate growth trajectory. It is a longitudinal analysis technique to estimate growth over a period of time. It is widely used in the field of behavioral science, education and social science. ...
to determine developmental trajectories and structural equation modeling
Structural equation modeling
Structural equation modeling is a statistical technique for testing and estimating causal relations using a combination of statistical data and qualitative causal assumptions...
, which determines the probabilities of venturing down specific paths. Rasch (1980) Analysis is now widely used to show sequentiality within a developmental trajectory.
One issue in methodology that was a particularly important discovery was the use of observational methods combined with lag sequential analysis to determine reinforcement
Reinforcement
Reinforcement is a term in operant conditioning and behavior analysis for the process of increasing the rate or probability of a behavior in the form of a "response" by the delivery or emergence of a stimulus Reinforcement is a term in operant conditioning and behavior analysis for the process of...
in the natural setting.
Quantitative Behavioral-Development
The Model of Hierarchical Complexity (MHC) is a quantitative behavioral-developmental theory that suggests an objective explanation for why stage-like performances are observed. The model proposes that stages result from the fact that tasks form a hierarchy from simple to more complex. A task is defined as hierarchically more complex when it organizes, in a non-arbitrary fashion, two or more less complex tasks. Using this model, fourteen orders of hierarchical complexity have been generated. These orders underlie Piaget’s four stages and also the half-stages. In addition, four post-formal stages are generated by the model. In this presentation, the model is used to generate stimuli (in the form of either problems or stories). The stimuli within a domain consist of an ordered series of tasks from the concrete order to the post-formal, systematic or in some cases, metasystematic order. Tasks were generated in several domains, including mathematical, scientific, moral, political, and other social domains. A Rasch analysis showed that items within each domain were well scaled on a single dimension reflecting the predicted difficulty of the item. Participants’ performances were shown to conform to the predictions of the model, with very high amounts of variance accounted for (from .73% and up).Contingencies, uncertainty, and attachment
An infant is born helpless into an uncertain world, and from its earliest moments, must rely on its parents for heat, food, water, and protection. The behavioral model of attachmentAttachment theory
Attachment theory describes the dynamics of long-term relationships between humans. Its most important tenet is that an infant needs to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for social and emotional development to occur normally. Attachment theory is an interdisciplinary study...
recognizes the role of uncertainty and that infants have a limited repertoire for communicating its needs. Actions which produce responding on the parents' part are highly valued. Because of this, contingent relationships are at the very heart of behavior analytic theory.
The importance of contingency appears to be highlighted in other developmental theories; however, many traditional developmental psychologists fail to recognize that contingency needs to be determined by two factors. These factors are not just the efficiency of the action but the efficiency of the act compared to all other acts that the infant may perform at that point. By learning these contingent relationships, infants and adults are able to function within their environment. In fact, research has shown that contingent relationships lead to more emotionally satisfying relationships.
As early as the 1960s, behavioral research showed that parental responsiveness toward the infant on separation predicted identified outcomes in the "stranger situation" and modified versions of this preparation. In one study, six 8- to 10-month-old infants participated in four test conditions. The study was a classic reversal design (see single-subject research
Single-subject research
Single-subject research is a group of research methods that are used extensively in the experimental analysis of behavior and applied behavior analysis with both human and non-human participants. Four principal methods in this type of research are: changing criterion, reversal , alternating...
) and assessed infant approach rate to a stranger. If attention was based on stranger avoidance, the infant avoided the stranger. If attention was placed on infant approach, the infant approached the stranger.
Recent meta-analytic studies of this model of attachment based on contingency found a moderate effect size, which increased to a large effect size when the quality of reinforcement was considered. Recent research on contingencies highlights the matching quality and places it in the dyadic context. In addition, such studies have shown that contingencies can affect the development of both pro-social and anti-social behavior. Training parents to become sensitive to the function of children's behavior and to respond behaviorally has resulted in a large effect size. Thus, attachment problems seem to be related to parents inadvertently reinforcing children to protest on separation. Meta-analyic research supports the notion that attachment is operant-based learning.
An infant's sensitivity to contingencies can be affected by biological factors. This, in conjunction with being placed in erratic environments which contain few contingencies, can set the child up to have conduct problems, and lack of contingencies in the environment can lead to depression (see Behavioral Development and Depression below). Research continues to look at the effects of learning-based attachment on moral development
Moral Development
Moral development focuses on the emergence, change, and understanding of morality from infancy to adulthood. In the field of moral development, morality is defined as principles for how individuals ought to treat one another, with respect to justice, others’ welfare, and rights...
, and has found that erratic use of contingencies by parents early in life can produce devastating effects later for the child.
Motor development
Behavior analysts have held since the days of Watson that motor development represents a conditioning process. The argument is that crawling, climbing, and even the walking displayed by all typical infants represents conditioning of biologically pre-programmed reflexes. In this view, the nature end is represented by the innate respondent behavior (stepping) and these reflexes are environmentally conditioned through experience and practice. This position was criticized by maturation theorists. One point of criticism was that the stepping reflex for infants appeared to disappear and thus was not "continuous". While working from a slightly different theoretical model but using operant conditioning and opportunity to respond techniques, Esther ThelenEsther Thelen
Esther Thelen was an expert in the field of Developmental Psychology. Thelen's research was focused on human development, espeically infant development....
was able to show that children's stepping reflex disappears as a function of increased physical weight but if infants are placed in water, it returns. This offered a plausible model for the continuity of the stepping reflex and thus the progressive stimulation model of the behavior analysts.
Indeed, infants deprived
Relative deprivation
Relative deprivation is the experience of being deprived of something to which one believes oneself to be entitled to have. It refers to the discontent people feel when they compare their positions to others and realize that they have less than them....
of physical stimulation
Stimulation
Stimulation is the action of various agents on nerves, muscles, or a sensory end organ, by which activity is evoked; especially, the nervous impulse produced by various agents on nerves, or a sensory end organ, by which the part connected with the nerve is thrown into a state of activity.The word...
or the opportunity to respond were found to have delayed motor development. Under conditions of extra stimulation, the motor behavior of these children rapidly improved. One area of research has shown that treadmilling can be beneficial to children with motor delays including Down syndrome
Down syndrome
Down syndrome, or Down's syndrome, trisomy 21, is a chromosomal condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 21st chromosome. It is named after John Langdon Down, the British physician who described the syndrome in 1866. The condition was clinically described earlier in the 19th...
and cerebral palsy. Research on opportunity to respond and the building of motor development continues today.
The behavioral development model of motor activity has produced a number of techniques including operant-based biofeedback to facilitate development with success. Some of the stimulation methods such as operant-based biofeedback
Biofeedback
Biofeedback is the process of becoming aware of various physiological functions using instruments that provide information on the activity of those same systems, with a goal of being able to manipulate them at will...
have been applied as treatment to children with cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy is an umbrella term encompassing a group of non-progressive, non-contagious motor conditions that cause physical disability in human development, chiefly in the various areas of body movement....
and even spinal injury successfully. Brucker's group demonstrated that specific operant conditioning-based biofeedback procedures can be effective in establishing more efficient use of remaining and surviving central nervous system cells after injury or after birth complications as in cerebral palsy. While such methods are not a cure and gains tend to be in the moderate range, they do show ability to enhance functioning.
Imitation and verbal behavior
As early as the 1920s, behaviorists were studying verbal behavior. Esper (1920) studied associative models of language, which has evolved into the current language interventions of matrix training and recombinative generalization. A comprehensive taxonomy of language for speakers was laid down by Skinner (1957) and for the listener Zettle and Hayes (1989) with Don Baer providing a developmental analysis of rule-governed behavior. Language learning according to Skinner (1957) depended on environmental variables, which are mastered by an active child through imitation (echoic behavior), practice, and selective reinforcementReinforcement
Reinforcement is a term in operant conditioning and behavior analysis for the process of increasing the rate or probability of a behavior in the form of a "response" by the delivery or emergence of a stimulus Reinforcement is a term in operant conditioning and behavior analysis for the process of...
including automatic reinforcement.
B.F. Skinner was one of the first psychologists to take the role of imitation in verbal behavior as a serious mechanism for acquisition. He identified the echoic as one of his basic verbal operants and postulated that verbal behavior was learned by an infant from a verbal community. Skinner's account takes verbal behavior beyond an intra-individual process to an inter-individual process. Of particular interest is that he even defined verbal behavior as "behavior reinforced through the mediation of others". Skinner's book was replied to by Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
. Initial behavioral replies were late but included: (1) comments on Chomsky's lack of understanding of behaviorism and the concept of the response class; (2) comprehensive reviews of the science and what still needs to be demonstrated; (3) historical and linguistic looks at the debate to place it in context; and (4) philosophy of science discussions for clarifying the differences. Myths have developed around behaviorism
Behaviorism
Behaviorism , also called the learning perspective , is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do—including acting, thinking, and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors, and that psychological disorders are best treated by altering behavior...
, for example suggesting behaviorism rejects biology, even a cursory read of Skinner (1981) shows that not to be the case. Four typical linguistic arguments all seem not to be valid: (1) the poverty of the stimulus; (2) negative feedback is negligible; and (3) input does not predict later output. Much of the research exposing these myths was reviewed in Moerk (1996) and readers are referred to that paper.
Research has presented a compelling case that environmental factors are important in the acquisition of verbal behavior. Observational learning
Observational learning
Observational learning is a type of learning that occurs as a function of observing, retaining and replicating novel behavior executed by others...
and imitation
Imitation
Imitation is an advanced behavior whereby an individual observes and replicates another's. The word can be applied in many contexts, ranging from animal training to international politics.-Anthropology and social sciences:...
play particularly important roles in language learning. Research seems to support the notion that imitation is progressive In general, research supports the three-term contingency patterns suggested by behavior analysts In addition, reinforcement appears to have a role. Meta-analysis has shown that there even seems to be a large role for corrections. Meork (1994) conducted a meta-analysis of 40 studies and found substantial evidence that corrections played a role. From this work, corrections are not only abundant but contingent on the mistakes of the child.
In the behavioral model, the child is prepared to contact the contingencies for "joining" the listener and speaker. At the very core, verbal episodes involve rotation of speaker and listener exchanges between individuals and even within the same person. These exchanges what has been termed the conversational units and have been the focus of considerable research at Columbia's communication disorders department.
Conversational units may be one of the strongest measures of socialization in that they consists of verbal interactions in which each party in a turn-taking exchange is reinforced as both speaker and listener. Chu (1998) demonstrated contextual conditions for inducing and expanding conversational units between children with autism and non-handicapped siblings in two separate experiments. The acquisition of conversational units and the expansion of verbal behavior decrease incidences of physical "aggression" in the Chu study and several other reviews suggest similar effects. The joining of the listener and speaker progresses from listener speaker rotations with others as a likely precedent for the three major components of speaker-as-own listener—say so correspondence, self-talk conversational units, and naming.
Development of self
Robert Kohelenberg and Mavis Tsai proposed a behavior analytic model to account for the development of the "self". In their model, the self develops as a product of reinforcement of verbal behavior in three stages. In the first stage the child receives reinforcement for statements such as "I am hot", "I am hungry", etc. Through the process of abstracting (higher order stimulus controlStimulus control
Stimulus control is the phenomenon of a stimulus increasing the probability of a behavior because of a history of that behavior being differentially reinforced in the presence of the stimulus...
), the statement "I am" emerges. Through the reinforcement on many statements such as "I am", "I feel", and "I think", gradually the "I" abstracts out. This model has not received much research attention; however, it does explain various forms of psychopathology with difficulties in the emerging "self" such as insecurity, narcissistic personality disorders, borderline personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder is a personality disorder described as a prolonged disturbance of personality function in a person , characterized by depth and variability of moods.The disorder typically involves unusual levels of instability in mood; black and white thinking, or splitting; the...
s, etc. It holds that the forms of pathology come from frequent invalidations of the above defined statements so that the "I" does not emerge.
The above model has created a unique treatment called functional analytic psychotherapy
Functional Analytic Psychotherapy
Functional analytic psychotherapy is an approach to clinical psychotherapy that uses a radical behaviorist position informed by B.F. Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior....
for such disorders.
Other behavior analytic models for personality disorders exist. They trace out the complex biological–environmental interaction for the development of avoidant and borderline personality disorders. They focus on Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory, which states that some individuals are more or less sensitive to reinforcement than others. Nelson-Grey views problematic response classes as being maintained by reinforcing consequences or through rule governance.
Socialization
Studies in this area have focused on the extended pattern of using rewards for behavior over time. The model focuses on two levels: micro- and macro-analysis. The "micro-analysis" level focuses on moment-to-moment interactions while a "macro-analysis" does so with parenting variables. Over the last few decades, longitudinal studies have supported the idea that contingent use of reinforcement and punishment over extended periods of time lead to the development of pro-social, as well as anti-social behavior. Midlarsky and colleagues (1973) used a combination of modeling and reinforcement to build altruistic behavior. At least two studies exist in which modelingObservational learning
Observational learning is a type of learning that occurs as a function of observing, retaining and replicating novel behavior executed by others...
by itself did not increase pro-social behavior; however, modeling is much more effective than instruction-giving such as "preaching". The role of rewards has been implicated in the building of self-control and empathy. Cooperation seems particularly susceptible to rewards. Sharing is another pro-social behavior influenced by reinforcement. Reinforcement
Reinforcement
Reinforcement is a term in operant conditioning and behavior analysis for the process of increasing the rate or probability of a behavior in the form of a "response" by the delivery or emergence of a stimulus Reinforcement is a term in operant conditioning and behavior analysis for the process of...
is particularly effective, at least early in the learning series, if context conditions are similar. Evidence exists to show some generalization. While reinforcement is generally accepted, the role of punishment has been more controversial.
An interesting batch of studies exist in the research on the role of punishment. One study found that donation rates of children could be increased by punishing episodes of failure to donate.
The socialization process continues by teachers and by peers with reinforcement and punishment playing major roles. Peers are more likely to punish cross-gender play and reinforce play specific to gender. Older studies found that teachers were more likely to reinforce dependent behavior in females. Such patterns have been found to contribute to gender differences at least in the short run.
Behavioral principles have also been researched in emerging peer groups with focus on status. Such research has found that neglected boys are the least interactive and aversive, yet remain relatively unknown in groups. In addition, this research suggests that it takes different social skills to enter groups than to maintain or build status in groups. Other research has found that withdrawn behavior can be decreased with a corresponding increase in social interactions for children.
In short, children have been shown to imitate peers. One study reported on average 13 imitative acts per child and hour. In addition, peers frequently reinforce each other's behavior. Among the aspects of social development responsive to peer reinforcement are sex-typed behavior, modes of initiating interaction, and aggression. This led to comprehensive behavioral models for moral and social behavior.
Recent efforts by Pelaez-Nogueras & Gewirtz (1995) are of interest in the generation of a comprehensive behavioral development model of moral and social behavior. Their behavior-analytical approach to a comprehensive model highlights how the basic behavioral processes are thought to be involved in the acquisition and maintenance of early moral behavior patterns. Their analysis emphasizes that what has been termed "moral" behavior of an individual is ultimately the result of a history of socio-environmental contingencies affected by the consequences of that individual's behavior. They illustrated how the operant-learning paradigm with its emphasis on action and extrinsic stimuli, can account for much moral behavior as an outcome of conditioning processes. In this analysis, various processes are proposed for pre- and post-language acquisition individuals, taking into account behaviors that are public or private, non-verbal or verbal, and that may denote altruism, empathy, self-sacrifice, sharing, caring, conscience, justice, loyalty, or virtue. In this conceptual work, they noted the distinction between direct contingency-shaped behavior and rule-governed behavior in which moral behavior is seen initially as under the control of nonverbal direct contingencies in pre-linguistic children. Later, with advances in the child's language skills, much of that behavior is seen as coming under the control of verbal explicit rules (including both those that are self-formulated and those provided by others). This behavior analytic approach details the features of the operant-learning paradigm efficiently to explain the very same phenomena in the moral realm; that behavioral, cognitive, and mental theories have targeted at the same time that it attempts to fill in details that cognitive-developmental postulates seem to require. Moreover, this work offered a basic behavior analytic explanation of moral phenomena not previously analyzed. They emphasized behavioral outcomes as well as antecedent and concurrent verbalizations of those behaviors (including verbal reasoning and moral judgment that have been the study matter of cognitive-developmental theories); the model may provide some leads on how to deal with overt actions in the moral realm.
Children with social problems do appear to benefit from behavior therapy and behavior modification
Behavior modification
Behavior modification is the use of empirically demonstrated behavior change techniques to increase or decrease the frequency of behaviors, such as altering an individual's behaviors and reactions to stimuli through positive and negative reinforcement of adaptive behavior and/or the reduction of...
based on behavior analytic principles (see Applied Behavior Analysis
Applied Behavior Analysis
Applied behavior analysis is a science that involves using modern behavioral learning theory to modify behaviors. Behavior analysts reject the use of hypothetical constructs and focus on the observable relationship of behavior to the environment...
). For example, modeling has been used to increase participation by shy and withdrawn children. One of the strongest effects seems to be shaping of socially desirable behavior through positive reinforcement.
Anti-social behavior
In the development of anti-social behavior, etiological models for anti-social behavior show considerable correlation with negative reinforcement and response matching (see matching lawMatching law
In operant conditioning, the matching law is a quantitative relationship that holds between the relative rates of response and the relative rates of reinforcement in concurrent schedules of reinforcement...
). Such models have consistently found a role for escape conditioning through the use of coercive behavior as having a powerful effect on the development and use of future anti-social tactics. From this view, anti-social behavior can be seen as functional for the child in moment to moment interactions. The rate of pro-social tactics used to anti-social tactics used during conflicts is directly proportional to the payoff. This model explains 76% of the variance in child's chosen tactics and over 56% of the variance in the parents' chosen tactics. Finally, the tactic payoff model was replicated and shown to predict arrest rates two years later. (For a complete review see (Synder (2002)). Interventions based on this model are developing as enhancements to the typical behavioral parent training model.
The role of stimulus control
Stimulus control
Stimulus control is the phenomenon of a stimulus increasing the probability of a behavior because of a history of that behavior being differentially reinforced in the presence of the stimulus...
has also been extensively explored in the development of anti-social behavior. Using lag sequential analysis, researchers have been able to describe the immediate impact of one person's behavior on another in the family. Such patterns showed that overlearning was so rampant that the behavior was automatic and cognitive awareness was neither necessary nor sufficient to explain the interactions.
Recent behavioral focus in the study of anti-social behavior has been a focus on rule-governed behavior. While correspondence for saying and doing has long been an interest for behavior analysts in normal development and typical socialization, recent conceptualizations have been built around families that actively train children in anti-social rules as well as children who fail to develop rule control.
Developmental depression with origins in childhood
Behavioral theory of depression was outlined by Charles FersterCharles Ferster
Charles Bohris Ferster was an American behavioral psychologist.-Biography:Ferster was born November 1, 1922 in Freehold, New Jersey, the second son of Julius B. and Molly Madwin Ferster....
. A later revision was provided by Peter Lewisohn and Hyman Hops. Hops continued the work on the role of negative reinforcement in maintaining depression with Anthony Biglan. Additional factors such as the role of loss of contingent relations through extinction and punishment were taken from early work of Martin Seligman. The most recent summary and conceptual revisions of the behavioral model was provided by Johnathan Kanter. The standard model is that depression has multiple paths to develop. It can be generated by five basic processes, including: lack or loss of positive reinforcement, direct positive or negative reinforcement for depressive behavior, lack of rule-governed behavior or too much rule-governed behavior, and/or too much environmental punishment
Punishment
Punishment is the authoritative imposition of something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal in response to behavior deemed wrong by an individual or group....
. For children, some of these variables could set the pattern for life-long problems. For example, a child whose depressive behavior functions for negative reinforcement by stopping fighting between parents could develop a life-long pattern of depressive behavior in the case of conflicts. Two paths that are particularly important are (1) lack or loss of reinforcement because of missing necessary skills at a developmental cusp point or (2) the failure to develop adequate rule-governed behavior. For the latter, the child could develop a pattern of always choosing the short-term small immediate reward (i.e., escaping studying for a test) at the expense of the long-term larger reward (passing courses in middle school). The treatment approach that emerged from this research is called behavioral activation
Behavioral activation
Behavioral activation is a third generation behavior therapy for treating depression. It is one of many functional analytic psychotherapies which are based on a Skinnerian psychological model of behavior change, generally referred to as applied behavior analysis...
.
In addition, use of positive reinforcement has been shown to improve symptoms of depression in children. Reinforcement has also been shown to improve the self-concept in children with depression comorbid with learning difficulties. Rawson and Tabb (1993) used reinforcement with 99 students (90 males and 9 females) aged from 8 to 12 with behavior disorders in a residential treatment program and showed significant reduction in depression symptoms compared to the control group.
Cognitive behavior
As children get older, direct control of contingencies is modified by the presence of rule-governed behavior. Rules serve as an establishing operation and set a motivational stage as well as a discrimintative stage for behavior. While the size of the effects on intellectual development are less clear, it appears that stimulation does have a facilitative effect on intellectual ability. However, it is important to be sure not to confuse the enhancing effect with the initial causal effect. Some data exists to show that children with developmental delays take more learning trials to acquire in material.Learned units and developmental retardation
Behavior analysts have spent considerable time measuring learning in the classroom and at home. During the course of this work, they have often presented evidence of the role of lack of stimulation in the development of mild and moderate mental retardardation. Recent work has been on a model of "developmental retardation". Often research in this area looks at cumulative environmental effects and how they create developmental delays. The opportunity to respond is defined as an instructional antecedent and its success in getting the appropriate response, sometimes fluency is used to measure this. The learned unit is defined as the opportunity to respond plus reinforcement.In one study using this model, students' time of instruction was compared in affluent schools to poorer schools. Actual amount of instruction received revealed that poorer schools lost on average about 15 minutes per day in instruction due to issues of classroom management
Classroom management
Classroom management is a term used by teachers to describe the process of ensuring that classroom lessons run smoothly despite disruptive behavior by students. The term also implies the prevention of disruptive behavior. It is possibly the most difficult aspect of teaching for many teachers;...
and behavior management
Behavior management
Behavior management is similar to behavior modification. It is a less intensive version of behavior therapy. In behavior modification the focus is on changing behavior, while in behavior management the focus is on maintaining order. Behavior management skills are of particular importance to...
issues. This compiled to two years worth of lost instructional time by grade 10. The goal of such behavior analytic research is to provide methods for reducing the overall number of children who fall into the retardation range of development by behavioral engineering
Behavioral engineering
Behavioral engineering is intended to identify issues associated with the interface of technology and the human operators in a system and to generate recommended design practices that consider the strengths and limitations of the human operators....
.
Probably the most extensive study to date has been the work of Hart and Risely (1995, 1999). These authors contrasted the rates of parent communication with children at the age of 2–4 years and correlated it with IQ scores for children at age 9. The research showed that the more parents spoke to children, the higher the IQ was, even after controlling for race, class, and socio-economic status. The authors reached the conclusion that to change IQ scores significantly, an interventionist would need to work with children at risk for close to 40 hours a week. As pointed out in the Bell Curve
The Bell Curve
The Bell Curve is a best-selling and controversial 1994 book by the Harvard psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray...
, no program to date has been effective in the long-term change of IQ scores and producing significant corresponding changes in social class.
Class formation
The formation of class-like behavior has been of considerable interest to behavior analysts studying development. Extensive research has been done in this area. From this research, behavior analysts have offered multiple paths to the development and formation of class-like behavior. These paths include primary stimulus generalization, an analysis of abstraction, relational frame theoryRelational frame theory
Relational frame theory, or RFT, is a psychological theory of human language and cognition. It was developed largely through the efforts of Steven C...
, stimulus class analysis (sometimes referred to as recombinative generalization), stimulus equivalence, and response class analysis. Of particular interest is the analysis of the response class. Multiple processes for class-like formation provide behavior analysts with relatively pragmatic explanations for common issues of novelity and generalization.
Responses organize in a form assembled by the particular form need to fit the environmental challenge at hand. Thus, the forms of the responses organize by responses functional consequences. Such large response classes can merge as in the case of contingency adduction. Much more research needs to be done on the issue of contingency adduction, especially with a focus on how large classes of concepts shift. For example, as Piaget
Piaget
Piaget is surname of:* Edouard Piaget , Swiss entomologist* Jean Piaget , Swiss developmental psychologist* Paul Piaget , a Swiss rower...
pointed out have a tendency at the pre-operational stage to have limits to their ability to conserver (Piaget & Szeminska, 1952). While training children to develop conservation skills has been generally successful, it is by no means easy. Behavior analysts argue that this is largely due to the number of tool skills that need to be developed and integrated. Adduction offers a process by which such skills can be synthesized and hence warrants further attention, particularly by early interventionists. Even with this said, children who learn to conserve early do not appear to have any other life benefit from the learning process. This brings up questions of the relevance of Piaget's model to development.
Autism
Ferster (1961) was the first to posit a behavior analytic theory for autismAutism
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
. Ferster's model saw autism as a by-product of social interactions between parent and child. Ferster presented an analysis of how a variety of contingencies of reinforcement between parent and child during the early years might establish and strengthen a repertoire of behaviors typically seen in children diagnosed with autism. A similar model was proposed by Drash and Tutor (1993). They developed the contingency-shaped or behavioral incompatibility theory of autism. They identify at least six reinforcement
Reinforcement
Reinforcement is a term in operant conditioning and behavior analysis for the process of increasing the rate or probability of a behavior in the form of a "response" by the delivery or emergence of a stimulus Reinforcement is a term in operant conditioning and behavior analysis for the process of...
paradigms that may contribute to significant deficiency in verbal behavior that they identified and analyzed in their research with children diagnosed as autistic. They held that each of these paradigms may concurrently create a repertoire of avoidance responses that could contribute to the establishment of a repertoire of behavior that would be incompatible with the acquisition of age-appropriate verbal behavior.
More recent models attribute autism
Autism
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
to neurological and sensory models that play out overtime to produce the autistic repertoire. Lovaas and Smith (1989) proposed that children with autism have a mismatch between their nervous systems and the environment. Bijou and Ghezzi (1999) proposed a behavioral interference theory. However, some recent evidence for the environmental mismatch model was recently reviewed as well as the inference model. From this article, it appears that some support exists to suggest that the development of ausitic behaviors are due to escape and avoidance of certain types of sensory stimuli. What seems to be the common feature of the behavioral models for autism, is the stunning lack of research conducted on them. At this point, they remain mostly speculation. For intervention see Natural language procedures
Natural language procedures
Natural language training is a set of procedures used by behavior analysts. These procedures are used to mirror the natural areas of language use for children. Behavior analysts language training procedures run along a continuum from highly restrictive such as discrete trial training to very...
.
Role in education
One of the biggest impacts that behavior analysis of child development has had is on the field of education. In 1968, Siegfried Englemann used operant conditioningOperant conditioning
Operant conditioning is a form of psychological learning during which an individual modifies the occurrence and form of its own behavior due to the association of the behavior with a stimulus...
techniques, a task analysis of curriculum, and combined them with rule learning to produce the Direct Instruction
Direct instruction
Direct Instruction is an instructional method that is focused on systematic curriculum design and skillful implementation of a prescribed behavioral script....
curriculum (see DISTAR
DISTAR
DISTAR is an acronym for Direct Instruction System for Teaching Arithmetic and Reading, a trademarked program of SRA/McGraw-Hill, a commercial publishing company. The program is used particularly for historically disadvantaged and/or at-risk students...
). In addition, Fred S. Keller
Fred S. Keller
Fred Simmons Keller was a pioneer in experimental psychology. He taught at Columbia University for 26 years and gave his name to the Keller Plan, also known as Personalized System of Instruction an individually paced, mastery-oriented teaching method that has had a significant impact on...
used similar techniques to develop programmed instruction
Programmed instruction
Programmed instruction is the name of the technology invented by the behaviorist B.F. Skinner to improve teaching. It is based on his theory of verbal behavior as a means to accelerate and increase conventional educational learning.-Programmed instruction:...
. Skinner developed a programmed instruction curriculum for teaching hand writing. One of Skinner's students, Ogden Lindsley
Ogden Lindsley
Ogden R. Lindsley was an American psychologist. He is best known for developing Precision Teaching and Celeration Charting....
, developed a standardized semilogrithmic chart, the "Standard Behavior Chart" now "Standard Celeration Chart" for recording frequencies of behavior, and to allow direct visual comparisons of such frequencies and changes in those frequencies, termed "celeration". Use of this charting tool for analysis of instructional effect or other environmental variable by direct measurement of learner performance has become known as precision teaching
Precision teaching
Precision teaching is a precise and systematic method of evaluating instructional tactics and curricula. It is one of the few quantitative analyses of behavior forms of applied behavior analysis. It comes from a very strong quantitative scientific basis and was pioneered by Ogden Lindsley in the...
.
Behavior analysts with a behavioral development focus form the basis of a movement that has come to be termed positive behavior support
Positive behavior support
Positive behavior support strives to use a system to understand what maintains an individual's challenging behavior. Students' inappropriate behaviors are difficult to change because they are functional; they serve a purpose for the child. These behaviors are supported by reinforcement in the...
(PBS). PBS has been focused on building safe schools.
In education, there are many different kinds of learning that are required for later interaction in the world. Such aspects of learning include social and language. These different areas of development are crucial for a growing child. And as technology continues to increase, its power has been spread to all areas. Technology can be used for good but too much of a good thing can have negative effects on a child or person. According to the NWREL (Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory), too much technology will hinder a child's social interactions with others. There is always a fear that later in life, this early computer interaction will become an addiction and lead to anti-social behavior. Not only is education and technology a big factor in child development, language always plays a big role. Language development doesn't seem to have the same need for technology as social development does but studies show that some technology helps motor skills develop more efficiently. It is said that by the age of 18 months, a child will start to learn and know about 5–20 different words. It is then understood that once the child knows these words, they go explore in the world and get a better understanding of this world.
Critiques of behavioral approach and new developments
Some have questioned if a behavioral approach to development is enough or if more traditional developmental variables play a causal role, particularly in areas of attachment. While some questions remain, it is clear that, in general, response-contingent learning opportunities produce strong emotional benefits and enhance emotional development.Behavior analytic theories have been criticized for focusing on explaining the acquisition of relatively simple behavior (the behavior of nonhuman species, of infants, and of individuals who are intellectually disabled or autistic) rather than complex behavior (see Commons & Miller). Michael Commons
Michael Commons
Michael Lamport Commons is a theoretical behavioral scientist and a complex systems scientist. He developed the Model of Hierarchical Complexity...
continued behavior analysis's rejecting of mentalism and substituted a task analysis
Task analysis
Task analysis is the analysis of how a task is accomplished, including a detailed description of both manual and mental activities, task and element durations, task frequency, task allocation, task complexity, environmental conditions, necessary clothing and equipment, and any other unique factors...
of the particular skills to be learned. This approach shows that more complex behaviors combine and sequence less complex behaviors. This fact of hierarchical organization may be used to define the nature of stage and stage transition. In his new model, he has created a behavior analytic model of more complex behavior in line with more contemporary quantitative behavior analytic models. He calls this the Model of Hierarchical Complexity. Commons constructed the Model of Hierarchical Complexity of tasks and their corresponding stages of performance using basically just three main axioms (see Model of Hierarchical Complexity
Model of hierarchical complexity
The model of hierarchical complexity is a framework for scoring how complex a behavior is. It quantifies the order of hierarchical complexity of a task based on mathematical principles of how the information is organized and of information science...
).
In the study of development, recent work has been generated around combining behavior analytic views with dynamical systems theory. The added benefit of this approach is that it shows how small patterns of changes in behavior in terms of principles and mechanisms over time can produce substantial changes in development.
Current research in behavior analysis attempts to extend the patterns learned in childhood and to determine their impact on adult development
Adult development
Adult Development is a branch of developmental psychology that deals specifically with how adults age through physical, emotional, and cognitive means...
.
Case studies
Following the fall of the Soviet-backed government in Romania in 1989, international adoption became a legal practice again. In 1991, a study was started that followed the development of orphans from the Romania orphanage to their new homes four years later. In total, seventy Canadian children were divided into three different groups. These groups related the orphanage against a normal childhood upbringing. The researchers interviewed the subjects and paired each of them with a similar subject in an opposing group, matching exact age and gender.There were twenty-four Romanian orphans that were followed after adoption. These children stayed in the orphanage for at least eight months of the first year of their life. Also children in this group were monitored to see if they were favored by the workers at the orphanage, to see if they received special care or attention. The twenty-four Canadian-born children were set up as a control group. These children were born in traditional nuclear families. These were not Romanian children; the only thing they had in common with their counterpart was exact age and gender. The third group was a smaller variable group where the researchers looked at eleven children that had been adopted from the orphanage less than four months from birth. These children were picked to determine if the amount of time in the orphanage had any effect on development at all.
When the children were on average, two researchers would interview the parents and the child separately. The parents were interviewed to determine the type of environment in which the child had lived. The child was given a Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scale IQ test. The preconception was that the Romanian group would score lower than both the Canadian group and the early adopted. The results show that the Romanian children have what is considered healthy brain activity, but show a deficiency in higher power motor skills and cognitive processes. This supports the researchers' claims that early childhood institutionalization directly affects the cognitive development of a child.
The early adoption group proved little results against either group. All eleven children in the group scored in between the Romanian and the Canadian groups in the IQ tests, yet there were not enough subjects in the group to give it credibility. But, one can take from this data that adoption before four months does increase the child's chances of cognitive growth.
Professional organizations
The Association for Behavior AnalysisAssociation for Behavior Analysis
The Association for Behavior Analysis International is a nonprofit professional membership organization with the mission to contribute to the well-being of society by developing, enhancing, and supporting the growth and vitality of the science of behavior analysis through research, education, and...
International has a special interest group for the behavior analysis of child development.
Doctoral level behavior analysts who are psychologists belong to American Psychological Association
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...
's division 25: Behavior analysis.
The World Association for Behavior Analysis has a certification in behavior therapy. The exam draws questions on behavioral theories of child development as well as behavioral theories of child psychopathology.
See also
- Applied Behavior AnalysisApplied Behavior AnalysisApplied behavior analysis is a science that involves using modern behavioral learning theory to modify behaviors. Behavior analysts reject the use of hypothetical constructs and focus on the observable relationship of behavior to the environment...
- Attachment in childrenAttachment in childrenNewborn humans infants cannot survive without a caregiver to provide food and protection, and will not thrive without other types of support as well. While infants have relatively few inborn behaviors—such as crying, rooting, and sucking—they also come with many behavioral systems ready to be...
- BehaviorismBehaviorismBehaviorism , also called the learning perspective , is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do—including acting, thinking, and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors, and that psychological disorders are best treated by altering behavior...
- Behavioral CuspBehavioral cuspA behavioral cusp is any behavior change that brings an organism's behavior into contact with new contingencies that have far-reaching consequences...
- Child developmentChild developmentChild development stages describe theoretical milestones of child development. Many stage models of development have been proposed, used as working concepts and in some cases asserted as nativist theories....
- Child development stagesChild development stagesChild development stages describe theoretical milestones of child development. Many stage models of development have been proposed, used as working concepts and in some cases asserted as nativist theories....
- Child psychology
- Critical periodCritical periodThis article is about a critical period in an organism's or person's development. See also America's Critical Period.In general, a critical period is a limited time in which an event can occur, usually to result in some kind of transformation...
- Early childhood educationEarly childhood educationEarly childhood education is the formal teaching and care of young children by people other than their family or in settings outside of the home. 'Early childhood' is usually defined as before the age of normal schooling - five years in most nations, though the U.S...
- Feral childFeral childA feral child is a human child who has lived isolated from human contact from a very young age, and has no experience of human care, loving or social behavior, and, crucially, of human language...
- Functional analysis (psychology)Functional analysis (psychology)Functional analysis in behavioral psychology is the application of the laws of operant conditioning to establish the relationships between stimuli and responses...
- PedagogyPedagogyPedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....
- Play (activity)Play (activity)Play is a term employed in ethology and psychology to describe to a range of voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities normally associated with pleasure and enjoyment...
- Professional practice of behavior analysisProfessional practice of behavior analysisThe professional practice of behavior analysis is one domain of behavior analysis: others being behaviorism, experimental analysis of behavior and applied behavior analysis...
Journal
- Family Process (journal)Family Process (journal)Family Process is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on family system issues, including policy and applied practice. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Family Process Institute...