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Language Development

Language Development

Children master language quickly and with relative ease, supported by both biological predisposition and reinforcement. B. F. Skinner (1957) proposed that language is learned through reinforcement, while Noam Chomsky (1965) argued that language acquisition mechanisms are biologically determined.
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 28, 2026

A Novel Experimental and Analytical Approach to the Multimodal Neural Decoding of Intent During Social Interaction in Freely-behaving Human Infants

A Novel Experimental and Analytical Approach to the Multimodal Neural Decoding of Intent During Social Interaction in Freely-behaving Human Infants

Published on: October 4, 2015

Infant sign training and functional analysis.

Matthew P Normand¹, Mychal A Machado, Kristin M Hustyi

¹Department of Psychology, University of the Pacific, Stockton, California 95211, USA. mnormand@pacific.edu

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis

|June 29, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Caregivers taught manual signs to infants, establishing them as mands through progressive prompting and reinforcement. This study validates verbal behavior analysis and demonstrates the functional independence of verbal operants.

Keywords:

functional analysis sign language verbal behavior

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Area of Science:

Developmental Psychology
Behavior Analysis

Background:

Early communication development is crucial for typically developing infants.
Understanding verbal operants, such as mands, informs early intervention strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

To teach manual signs to typically developing infants.
To establish these signs as mands using behavioral principles.
To validate the verbal behavior functional analysis methodology.

Main Methods:

A reversal design was employed with caregiver-nominated stimuli.
Progressive prompting and reinforcement were used to establish mands.
Functional analyses were conducted post-intervention to verify mand function.

Main Results:

Manual signs were successfully taught to infants.
The trained signs functioned as mands.
Preliminary validation of the verbal behavior functional analysis methodology was achieved.

Conclusions:

Caregiver involvement and behavioral techniques can effectively establish early verbal operants.
The findings support the functional independence of different verbal operants.
This research provides evidence for applied behavior analysis in early communication.