Skinner - Behaviourism

    Cards (9)

    • Cause: language input from other speakers.
    • Effect: the production of speech.
    • Language is learnt like any other behaviour, through external stimuli.
    • Caregivers reinforce and ‘correct’ children’s utterances, forming the basis for their knowledge of language.
    • Only humans can acquire language. It is an independent system, separate from cognition.
    • Children do not automatically pick up ‘correct’ forms from imitation.
    • Grammatical structures do not seem to be assimilated by imitation.
    • Behaviourism fails to explain how children are able to produce structures they have not heard before.
    • Behaviourism consists of imitation, praise and correction.