Behavior analysis of child development

Current research is focused on integrating single-subject designs through meta-analysis to determine the effect sizes of behavioral factors in development.

A recent methodological change in the behavioral analytic theory is the use of observational methods combined with lag sequential analysis can determine reinforcement in the natural setting.

The behavioral model of attachment recognizes the role of uncertainty in an infant and the child's limited communication abilities.

Contingent relationships are instrumental in the behavior analytic theory, because much emphasis is put on those actions that produce parents' responses.

[23] Since 1961, behavioral research has shown that there is relationship between the parents' responses to separation from the infant and outcomes of a "stranger situation.".

[18][27][28][29] These effects can also be furthered by training parents to become more sensitive to children's behaviors,[30] Meta-analytic research supports the notion that attachment is operant-based learning.

Studies show that being placed in erratic environments with few contingencies may cause a child to have conduct problems and may lead to depression.

Some studies have shown that erratic use of contingencies by parents early in life can produce devastating long-term effects for the child.

This holds that crawling, climbing, and walking displayed by infants represents conditioning of biologically innate reflexes.

By working with a slightly different theoretical model, while still using operant conditioning, Esther Thelen was able to show that children's stepping reflex disappears as a function of increased physical weight.

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.

[45][46][47][48] 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 (like cerebral palsy).

[66] H.C. Chu (1998) demonstrated contextual conditions for inducing and expanding conversational units between children with autism and non-disabled siblings in two separate experiments.

[67] The acquisition of conversational units and the expansion of verbal behavior decrease incidences of physical "aggression" in the Chu study[67] and several other reviews suggest similar effects.

Kohlenberg and Tsai developed functional analytic psychotherapy to treat psychopathological disorders arising from the frequent invalidations of a child's statements such that "I" does not emerge.

The building of self-control, empathy, and cooperation has all implicated rewards as a successful tactic, while sharing has been strongly linked with reinforcement.

Imitating a parent, brother, peer, or a character on TV, a child may engage in the anti-social behavior of swearing.

[102][103][104][105] Additional factors such as the role of loss of contingent relations through extinction and punishment were taken from early work of Martin Seligman.

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.

[109] 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.

Additionally, they concluded a significant change in IQ scores required intervention with at-risk children for approximately 40 hours per week.

[137][138][139][140][141][142] Multiple processes for class-like formation provide behavior analysts with relatively pragmatic explanations for common issues of novelty and generalization.

[146] Behavior analysts argue that this is largely due to the number of tool skills that need to be developed and integrated.

Contingency adduction offers a process by which such skills can be synthesized and which shows why it deserves further attention, particularly by early childhood interventionists.

Ferster presented an analysis of how a variety of contingencies of reinforcement between parent and child during early childhood might establish and strengthen a repertoire of behaviors typically seen in children diagnosed with autism.

[148] They identified at least six reinforcement paradigms that may contribute to significant deficiencies in verbal behavior typically characteristic of children diagnosed as autistic.

In 1968, Siegfried Englemann used operant conditioning techniques in a combination with rule learning to produce the direct instruction curriculum.

The use of this charting tool for analysis of instructional effects or other environmental variables through the direct measurement of learner performance has become known as precision teaching.

[160][161] In the study of development, recent work has been generated regarding the combination of behavior analytic views with dynamical systems theory.

[163] Current research in behavior analysis attempts to extend the patterns learned in childhood and to determine their impact on adult development.