Philosopher Analysis Stankevicius

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B.F. Skinner 1 How did Skinner’s philosophy about behavior and education help students with disabilities? Elizabeth Stankevicius School of Education, Liberty University Author Note Elizabeth Stankevicius I have no known conflict of interest to disclose. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Elizabeth Stankevicius Email: estankevicius@liberty.edu

B.F. Skinner 2 Abstract Students with disabilities often have deficits in various domains, such as social, language, and academics. Specifically, deficits in language can often lead to complications with an individual’s academics, communication skills, and social skills. Individuals with disabilities, specifically those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), tend to have difficulties with language. B.F. Skinner’s language theory of verbal behavior has been the basis for various language interventions. Skinner’s theory of verbal behavior emphasizes the differences between the behavior of the listener and that of the speaker. There have been interventions based on the verbal behavior that have been used for individuals with disabilities and research and literature show the increases in language acquisition that these learners have made. Verbal behavior is broken up into different verbal operants. Each operant looks at each component of language in a functional way. The basic verbal operants are tact, mand, echoic, and intraverbal. Keywords: verbal operant, mand, tact, echoic, intraverbal.

B.F. Skinner 3 How did Skinner’s philosophy about behavior and education help students with disabilities? B.F. Skinner wrote various works that continue to have a great impact today in the realm of special education and applied behavior analysis (ABA). Two of his works Verbal Behavior (1957) and The Technology of Teaching (1968) are the focus of this paper. The research and literature that discuss the theories and show how the implementation affect students with disabilities is great. Skinner had written extensively on how his theories and ideas could be applied in the educational setting. Background and Cultural Context B.F. Skinner studied psychology and was greatly influenced in his studies by Ivan Pavlov, Bertrand Russell, and John B. Watson. His interest in behaviorism led him to do research and experiments with animal behavior. B.F. Skinner is widely known for his invention the Skinner box which showed how reinforcement directly affected the behavior of the pigeons. “Although the American psychologist, Edward Thorndike, had stated the law of effect in 1898 as a result of his experiments with animals in puzzle boxes, it was Skinner who discovered that rate of responding as a dependent variable was sensitive to a variety of experimental manipulations. As a result, Skinner discovered how the law of effect–now called the law of reinforcement– worked and under what circumstances. He then discovered other laws of operant learning, including extinction, punishment, discrimination, and generalization” (Schlinger, 2020 p.1089). Skinner published various works such as Verbal Behavior (1957), The Analysis of Behavior (1961), and The Technology of Teaching (1968).

B.F. Skinner 4 Philosophy of Education Skinner had written extensively on how his theories and ideas could be applied in the educational setting. He had believed that there was a large presence of aversive control in education. Students were not doing their schoolwork because they wanted to but rather they would do it so they would not receive some sort of punishment, such as a loss of privileges. Skinner also felt that reinforcement occurred too infrequently and when it did, it was not the appropriate time. “Skinner believed that teaching required properly arranging reinforcement contingencies. Instruction is more effective when (1) teachers present the material in small steps, (2) learners actively respond rather than passively listen, (3) teachers give feedback immediately following learner’s responses, and (4) learners move through the material at their own pace” (Schunk, 1991, p.109). Skinner stated the process of instruction involves shaping. Shaping is where you establish operant behavior successive approximations towards the desired response. Schunk (1991) described it as the goal of the instruction is the desired behavior, the initial behaviors of the student are identified. Then the substeps (behaviors) that lead to the desired behavior are formulated and each of those represent a small modification of the proceeding behavior. Various approaches are used for each student, which may include small group, modeling, and individual seatwork. This along with immediate feedback and active student responding is how Skinner thought the best way for students to be taught.

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