Behaviour Modification in Communication Deficit

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the behavior modification in communication deficit. The cognitive prerequisites for verbal communication in normal children have only recently become the subject of detailed study. It is likely that these prerequisites are in part the result of an infant's early interaction with his/her environment. The basic skills of selective attention, discrimination of similarity or difference, the use of inference, and awareness of causation are all believed to be forming during the sensorimotor stage, preceding the use of functional verbal expression. To date behavioral techniques have not been very successful in developing functional language in previously noncommunicating individuals. Rather these techniques appear in the main to develop rote learning of phrases that have little semantic intent and are highly context-specific. Generalization of the phrases to contexts other than those in which they were learnt is rare. It maybe that prior to teaching the noncommunicating mentally retarded, behavioral techniques should be used to establish and/or develop the cognitive skills currently being identified as the prerequisites for language in normal children.