During the 1970s, O Ivar Lovaas (1966) introduced discrete trial training based on Skinner’s behavioural principle for teaching language to non-verbal children with autism (Smith, 1989). Behaviourism is a theory of animal and human learning that emphasizes the changes in observable, external behaviours. This theory followed B.F. Skinner’s idea in the book Verbal Behaviour (1957), that learning is a new behaviour that takes place as a result of selected and shaped reinforcement. Skinner’s notion using of ‘external factors’ as an explanation of language learning theory was criticised by Chomsky (1959) for being too simple. He argued that emphasising the role of ‘stimulus’, ‘response’, and ‘reinforcement’ ignored the internal structure of children’s language acquisition which Chomsky highlighted as the fundamental device. The simple principle of stimulus-respond- reinforcement associations in shaping verbal behaviour was refused in that it could not adequately explain how children can rapidly acquire language in the complex interaction of their lives.
The behavioural approach uses a highly structured pre-planned programme, and focuses on objective-based or task-centred activities and on passing knowledge from teachers to students. The technique involves strategies for breaking down complex skills into sub-smaller skills or task analysis and each small skill being taught through highly adult-structured and child compliant structures. The rationale of Lovaas’ (1977; 1981 cited in Smith, 1989) work was that people with autism would not learn enough in the natural environment. Learning situations consist with constantly didactic approaches to a learner’s response by imitating the teacher’s model with verbal request through the use of explicit prompting, shaping and reinforcement techniques.
Although the positive results of the behavioural programme studies were extensively reported, since the mid-1980s the concern with this technique has increased. Many practitioners and researchers questioned the use of this
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strategy in training in all kinds of abilities, including the development of communication and language, for example McConkey, 1981; Smith, Moore and Phillips, 1983; and Hewett and Nind, 1988. The concerns of the behaviourist technique included the problem of generalisation to independent use in natural interaction. This has been seen as a possibly result from the continual breaking down of skills into sub-smaller skills of task analysis techniques leading to a removal of the complexity of behaviour (Ballard, 1987; Wood and Shears, 1986) or from language teaching in behavioural practice, which tends to limit the opportunities for conversational exchange and true communication. The learner is required to produce a predetermined verbal response and thus it tends to fail in the maintenance of communication (Coupe O’Kane and Goldbart, 1998, p. 28; Goldbart, 1988, p. 66).
Keeping children ‘on task’ also may hinder their spontaneity because children’s initiating behaviour would be seen as ‘off-task’ responding (Bray, Macarthur, and Ballard, 1988, p. 212 citing many authors). The high teacher- controlled instructional activity has been criticized for leading to limitations or failures of transferring those skills to non-teaching situations (Spradlin and Siegel, 1982, cited in Ballard, 1987 and Bray et al., 1988). Moreover, adult- child interactions in behavioural approaches have been considered as placing a learner in a passive role; the pupils tend to have little opportunity to initiate, share power or control over the teaching interactions (Bray, et al., 1988; Smith, et al., 1983). The direction of inflexible teaching interaction discourages initiation, spontaneity in communication and learning by placing a child into a respondent role (Ballard, 1987) and the learner may become dependent on what is prompted (Prizant and Wetherby, 1998).
The behavioural objective model has been concerned with emphasising what is taught rather than what is learnt. This technique could thus ‘degrade’ the learner, the teacher and the learning process (Billinge, 1988). This model considerably underestimates the ability of teachers to structure the learning experiences of pupils and the ability of pupils to learn in an active interaction, shaping their own curriculum (Billinge, 1988). The approach to teaching
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seems not to value the unique characteristics of either the child or the teacher, or the relationship between teacher and child that can develop through interaction (Ballard, 1987). Meanwhile, the heavy emphasis on maintaining pre-planned tasks has the effect of discouraging teachers’ responses to pupils’ initiations (Smith et al., 1983). It seems that this way of teaching does not support the task of teaching which aims to support and extend pupils’ powers in an environment (Billinge, 1988). Consequently, behavioural teaching techniques have not been viewed as promoting real learning or real understanding and ‘education’ (McConkey, 1981; Smith et al., 1983). The nature of its reduction tends to lead to over-simplification (Bruner, 1981) which lacks sensible thinking about the aims of education (Nind and Thomas, 2005).
By concentrating almost exclusively on objective-based teaching, it is a denial of the complexity of the learning process which may extend beyond overt behaviours and task analysis (Ballard, 1987). The teaching procedure tends to impose teacher’s understanding on children with little opportunity to develop their own understanding. It is important that the knowledge constructed from an understanding through the process of teaching involves a mental structure which is retained better and has much wider transfer and application (McConkey, 1981). In the behavioural objective teaching, communicative skills are taught isolated from social interaction or social context in which it is seen as a necessary component for the learning process of communication. Language development occurs in the social context of communication (Bruner, 1981). An intervention should thus be directed at supporting social interaction process rather than attempting to reduce them through direct instruction in which the learning outcome is specified in advance (Bruner, 1975; Harris, 1988).
At present, Skinner’s theory of language acquisition seems to have received less attention (Cattle, 2000). Whilst retaining this approach, Farrell (1991) said that the structured objectives-based teaching of a behavioural approach may be most inappropriate when teaching language and communication, and has attempted to complement behavioural and interactive approaches with
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each other. Presently some traditional behaviourists in the US, such as Kogel, Prizant and Wetheby, see the need to move from traditional behavioural approaches to language and communication in autism because they recognise some of the weakness in the traditional work (generalisation) and prefer a more child-centred approach or naturalistic approaches to language intervention.
This section critiques the limitations of behavioural approaches to teaching which use highly structured, teacher-controlled approaches with a focus on objective-based teaching. Next, the section describes the central features of Intensive Interaction and the evidence of its effectiveness.