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.