EARLY LANGUAGE INTERVENTION ALTERNATIVES TO BEHAVIORISM

In "Early Language Intervention: A Conceptual and Clinical Critique" (Bryen, 1986), the position that all of the knowledge involved in early language and communication learning is not fully specifiable and thus cannot be taught by prescription was explored. Additionally, it was proposed that learning to communicate requires that the learner have faith in himself and in his 'teacher.' Each of these positions yields direct implications for how language is learned and how language intervention should be planned and implemented with severely handicapped persons. Current approaches to early language intervention, especially prescriptive ones such as behaviorism, were challenged. Prescriptive notions and practices such as the following formed the bases of this challenge: (1) the assumption that all of the particulars of language and communication can and should be specified and subsequently taught prescriptively, (2) that the structures of language can be separated from their functions, and that (3) highly specified and deterministic use of reinforcement will increase the severely handicapped person's communicative competence. In this follow-up paper, alternative intervention strategies are presented which underscore the importance of the social and cognitive bases of early language and communication, the primacy of communicative functions, and the important role of context.