Behavioral Technology

Program Objective

Our broad objective is to develop a scientific foundation for effective teaching and evaluation of individuals who are difficult or impossible to teach with currently available methods. The research focuses on school-aged children whose behavioral deficits include poorly developed language, atypical attention and/or perception, behavioral inflexibility, and similar problems. Our goals are to (1) advance scientific understanding of behavioral deficits that may impede learning, and (2) verify that understanding by developing teaching technologies that reliably produce positive learning outcomes.

For this reason, our research program is strongly directed toward teaching applications in communication, functional academics (e.g., word recognition, counting, etc.), and their behavioral prerequisites (e.g., detection of stimulus similarity or difference, attending to relevant aspects of structurally complex stimuli, development and use of appropriate strategies, etc.). Public schools and other programs serving children with mental retardation often focus on such subject matter. At present, however, instruction fails too frequently. Through our research, we hope to help correct this national problem.