The SAGE Handbook of Special Education brings together the most up to date knowledge of this area and will serve as the major source book of authoritative information and ideas about current and future directions for special education. It aims to examine the intricate relations between theory, research, and practice, and places a particular emphasis on international policies such as Education for All, and inclusive education as a strategy for achieving it. This comprehensive, research-based work, assembles scholarship on an international level, and covers topics that transcend national boundaries.

Behavioral Theory and Practice: Current and Future Issues

Behavioral Theory and Practice: Current and Future Issues

Behavioral theory and practice: Current and future issues

Behavioral theories are based on the underlying epistemological model known as logical positivism. Positivism asserts that the only valid knowledge is that which is objectively observed. It is from this model that scientific theories of behavior are generated which, in turn, are used to develop and apply technology whose primary goal is cost-effective, useful, and ethical behavior change (Fishman, Rotgers, & Franks, 1988). Behavioral theory has its roots in two orientations: Skinner's (1938) operant conditioning and Pavlov's (1927) respondent (classical) conditioning. Hull (1943), an early contemporary of Skinner, developed a systematic behavior theory that meshed together operant and respondent conditioning.

Behavior modification – a term believed to have first appeared in a ...

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