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Early Child Learning of Social and Cognitive SkillsMartha Pelaez1 and Katerina Monlux2

1 Florida International University, USA2 Stanford University, USA, and Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway

Behavior-analytic approaches to child development emphasize the role of environmentin learning. This entry highlights the importance of viewing development as the insepa-rable interaction of children and caregivers. It discusses young children’s cognitive andsocial behaviors as learned skills and highlights the processes responsible for such learn-ing. The learning of basic communication and verbal behavior begins with joint atten-tion, social referencing, echoic behavior, manding, tacting and naming, intraverbals,autoclitics, and generalized vocal imitation. These basic communication skills facili-tate the development of more advanced phenomena, such as perspective taking. Thisentry discusses elements of children’s early social development including exploratorybehavior and play, autonomy, self-regulation, and rule-governed behavior. Children’searly emotional development includes attachment and fear, empathy, and moral behav-ior. The last section of this entry provides a brief description of the early emergenceof child behavioral disorders such as autism, attention-deficit, and oppositional defi-ance, and problematic interactive behavior. Children learn to behave mainly throughinteractions with others. Behavior-analytic approaches to development emphasize therole of children’s social environment in learning (Bijou 1976, 1979; Bijou & Baer, 1961,1965; Gewirtz & Pelaez-Nogueras, 1992a; Novak & Pelaez, 2004; Pelaez & Monlux, 2018;Schlinger, 1995). This entry covers young children’s skills that are not organized by spe-cific ages or delineated stages that explain social development, but that describe it. Theexplanations of behavioral development lie in the natural science of the behavioral prin-ciples and processes of behavior analysis and the natural history of children’s biologicaland behavioral development. This entry presents young children’s cognitive and socialbehaviors as learned skills and highlights the processes responsible for such learning.The entry’s use of the ordinary-language categories of early childhood development (e.g.,separation anxiety, self-regulation) makes it more accessible to non-behavior-analyticreaders, all the while emphasizing that its language is descriptive, not explanatory. Forinstance, cognition is not a cause or explanation of behavior—it is behavior.

It can be argued that the development of these skills will depend on the quality of theyoung child’s interaction with a caregiver, the child’s prior experience with the context,and the degree of exposure that the child has to reinforcing stimuli. The effectiveness ofthe environmental contingencies will determine the child’s social, adaptive, cognitive,

Encyclopedia of Child and Adolescent Development. Edited by Stephen Hupp and Jeremy Jewell.© 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2020 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


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2 Behavior in Childhood

and language skills. Bijou and Baer (1965) define development as progressive changesin the interactions that occur between the child’s and the stimulus events and condi-tions that make up the child’s environment. The social skills reported here will ultimatelydetermine the child’s developmental level and these skills are not caused by a particularinnate stage of development (Pelaez, Gewirtz, & Wong, 2008).

Thus, this entry first presents a brief history of the origins of the behavior-analyticview of stages. Kantor (1933) divided development into universal, basic, and societalstages. As Bijou (1976) has stated: “The only justification for dividing the human lifespaninto stages is to simplify the analysis of the extraordinarily complex relationships thatare involved in development” (p. 2). Furthermore, Bijou (1993) later stated: “Stages byages has the virtue of simplicity and objectivity, but is much too arbitrary to be helpfulto anyone searching for functional relationships between behavior and circumstanceswithin and between successive developmental periods” (p. 43).

The universal stage begins some time before birth and continues until the acquisitionof verbal behavior (i.e., it is the preverbal period of development—approximately thefirst 18 months of life). Human life begins at this universal stage because developmentstarts in a universally uniform way. Prenatally, organisms begin to interact with theirenvironment reflexively (respondent learning) and this typically occurs in the same wayacross individuals (Bijou, 1993; Bijou & Baer, 1965). These neonatal behaviors are unco-ordinated until the child interacts with the environment in such a way that they becomecoordinated. From the prenatal state to infancy, this period is characterized by the foun-dational interactions the infant has with caregivers, which “may vary in degree and detailfrom one infant to another, but will be similar in form for all infants” (Bijou, 1993, p. 45).Once development begins, it is a highly dynamic system because there are numerouscategories interacting that can affect the child’s developmental trajectory, such as bio-logical factors, nutritional effects, diseases, infections, and drugs as well as physical andsocial actions, such as parenting styles (Novak & Pelaez, 2004).

After the universal stage comes the basic stage. The basic stage is “the period in whichthe child develops into a distinctly socialized individual” (Bijou, 1976, p. 1, emphasisin original). The basic period, in terms of developmental landmarks, spans from whena child begins to talk to when they enter school and during this period the child haslearned a unique set of social skills, most of which are discussed in this entry (e.g.,exploratory, joint attention, social referencing, morality, and self-regulation).

The bulk of this entry focuses on social and cognitive skills that develop during theuniversal and basic stages. However, as stated earlier, these stages do not start or endabruptly, and biological development bleeds across these categorizations; the societalstage is categorized by the widest variation in starting age across children. How a childdevelops socially is initially heavily dependent on the family unit; some families beginsocialization earlier than school age, such as through neighbors or church groups orother playgroups, and other children are not exposed to other peers until they reachschool age. This development is initially led by adults before transitioning to being ledby peers (see Novak & Pelaez, 2004).

While the field of psychology has many stage theories of child development, todaybehavior analysis provides psychologists and educators with practical tools to conductbehavioral assessments and to develop effective early interventions to teach childrenskills that they are lacking (Neimy & Pelaez, in press). This entry covers behaviors seenfrom infancy to early childhood based on categories. That is, the skills reviewed here


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Early Child Learning of Social and Cognitive Skills 3

cover early forms of communication, including joint attention and social referencing;early verbal development, including generalized imitation; and emotional development,including around fear, attachment, self-regulation, autonomy, and rule-governed behav-ior. The entry ends by discussing briefly the development of complex behaviors such asperspective taking. The developmental period covered is characteristically marked bythe learning of new cognitive and socioemotional skills and is also when developmentaldelays and signs of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) begin to show.

The authors of this entry have contrasted the Piagetian stage approach with thebehavior analysis of child development elsewhere (e.g., Gewirtz & Pelaez-Nogueras,1992a; Pelaez et al., 2008; Schlinger, 1995). Their most prominent concern with thecognitive–developmental stage theories is the use of abstract constructs as explana-tions. Often, the concept and not the functional relations between behavior and itsenvironmental contingencies is the object of study. The problem is that the concept isalso used to explain the behavior observed. For example, consider the concept of objectpermanence, which is typically well developed by age 2. Object permanence is whenan infant is able to behave similarly toward an object that is out of sight and the sameobject within their sight. When this phenomenon is observed, it (object permanency)typically becomes both the subject of research/experimentation and the explanationprovided. Novak and Pelaez (2004) and Schlinger (1995) have noted this problem ofreification in cognitive–developmental psychology. This way of building a theory ofchild development seems problematic because it usually does not clearly identify therelations learned between the environmental conditions and the behavior measured.Developmental stage theories tend to focus mainly on when a behavior skill is supposedto emerge in a child.

Another aspect that is of concern is the use of constructs such as “schemas” and “men-tal representations” as explanations. These often misrepresent the findings as true expla-nations, when there is no physical evidence of the existence of “schemas.” Constructsare descriptions of behavior, not explanations; conversely, the processes and the func-tion of behavior are important in the analyses herein. The sections that follow describechildren’s learning of early forms of communication and socioemotional development(such as joint attention and emotional learning) and provide a brief description of thedevelopment of early childhood behavioral disorders.

1 Early Forms of Communication and Verbal Behavior

Children need communication skills to succeed in daily life at home and at school. Earlyforms of communication include both receptive and expressive repertoires, althoughreceptive repertoires are typically present before expressive language is displayed.Receptive language is broadly defined as comprehension or following instructionswhereas expressive language requires more of an active production role from thespeaker. Expressive communication applies not only to spoken language but also tothe gestures and signs a child emits. The majority of communication skills explored inthis section involve expressive verbal behavior based on Skinner’s (1957) analysis ofverbal behavior, including mands, tacts, and intraverbals. The communication skillsthat typically begin to develop during the first year of life include joint attention,social referencing, mands, tacts (pointing), echoic behavior, intraverbals, and verbal


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imitation (for a more detailed developmental sequence, see Pelaez & Monlux, 2018).The following subsections briefly define these skills in typically developing children.

Joint Attention and Social Referencing

Both joint attention and social referencing skills typically have developed by age 1. Jointattending is typically acquired earlier than social referencing, between 9 and 12 months.It involves the ability to make eye contact with another individual, shift one’s gaze to anobject or other stimulus (that the caregiver is similarly looking at), and shift the gazeback to regain eye contact with that caregiver for a shared experience (Monlux, Pelaez,& Holth, in press; Pelaez, 2009; Pelaez & Monlux, 2018). For example, a mother and childare playing together in the front yard when an unfamiliar puppy runs through the grass;the child initially makes eye contact with their mother (a developmental prerequisite),shifts their gaze to the puppy, and then shifts their gaze back toward their mother tocheck whether she too sees the dog (joint attention). If the child sees her smiling, thechild may run over to the dog (social referencing). In this instance, the child has inter-preted the smile from her mother as signaling that there is reinforcement available forapproaching the unfamiliar stimulus or that it is safe to approach the dog without themother actually verbalizing this (DeQuinzio, Poulson, Townsend, & Taylor, 2016; Pelaez,Virués-Ortega, & Gewirtz, 2012).

Social referencing is typically learned after joint attention; however, this develop-mental sequence is still under discussion in the literature (Monlux et al., in press). Theauthors of this entry typically teach joint attention prior to social referencing becausethe behavior chain of social referencing builds on the joint attention behavior chain.In other words, an ability to engage in joint attending is necessary for the child to actaccording to the cues given by the caregiver during social referencing. Furthermore, theskill of social referencing could be seen as a particular type of joint attention (Monluxet al., in press). The infant looks (e.g., the observing response) at the caregiver’semotional reactions (e.g., grimace or smile) in the presence of an ambiguous or novelobject or event, and uses (i.e., references) these gestures or the caregiver’s emotionsas discriminative stimuli to inform their own behavior. The cues help the child todetermine how to respond in the situation, and the emotional and social cues involvedin social referencing responses (the mother’s fearful and happy or joyful expression)facilitate the learning of other stimulus relations (e.g., those involved in empathy orin understanding the emotions of others; Pelaez et al., 2012). Both joint attention andsocial referencing are early forms of communication that seem to facilitate other moreadvanced and complex forms of social skills, such as perspective taking. When earlycommunication skills such as joint attention and social referencing are absent duringthe basic stage, the child is at risk of developmental delays including language delays(Neimy, Pelaez, Carrow, Monlux, & Tarbox, 2017).

Echoic Behavior and Vocal Imitation

As with the earlier behaviors discussed, communication and language are not attributeddirectly to brain maturation or age. During early infancy, the universal period, a ver-bal operant is considered an echoic behavior if it has point-to-point correspondencewith a preceding verbal stimulus (Skinner, 1957). The caregiver’s vocal imitation shapes


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the frequency of infant vocalizations. The effectiveness of contingent imitation versusnoncontingent adult responses and Motherese speech following infant vocalizations hasbeen extensively investigated (Pelaez, Virués-Ortega, & Gewirtz, 2011a, 2011b). Theresults of a recent study show that adult contingent vocal imitation not only producesthe highest frequency of infant vocalization but also induces infant vocal imitation inchildren as young as 3 months (e.g., Pelaez, Borroto, Alexa, & Carrow, 2018). After anestablished history of conditioned reinforcement, a young child learns to imitate wordsspoken by their parents and caregivers through systematic and contingent social rein-forcement consisting of smiles, touch, and praise (Greer & Singer-Dudek, 2008). How-ever, if expressive language skills are not present by the end of the basic stage, it could besome cause for concern because emerging language typically marks the transition intothe basic stage (see Neimy et al., 2017).

Mands and Tacts

Language development can greatly impact the social and cognitive behavior and learn-ing of a child. Each child may develop nonverbal and verbal ways of communicatingtheir needs. Behavior analysts are interested in the function of language—its actual usageand what maintains it and shapes it—and they are focused on studying how languageemerges. Mands are typically present in very early infancy (e.g., a cry as a request formilk). A mand is a verbal response that the caregiver typically reinforces with a specificconsequence and it is a response that is under the control of deprivation or aversive stim-ulation (e.g., being hungry as a setting event or establishing operation; Skinner, 1957,pp. 35–36). A mand is unique in that as a verbal operant it is under the control of condi-tions of deprivation and it functions much like a request—the reinforcement for issuinga mand is typically the item or object itself. Mand repertoires allow for preschool chil-dren to communicate their needs and they also serve in training other communicationskills in children with language deficits. According to Sundberg (2008) in the VerbalBehavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program assessment, mands should betaught prior to any other verbal operant if there is any sort of language delay to capitalizeon the strong motivating operation of receiving the item requested as a consequence ofissuing the mand.

A tact, on the other hand, is maintained by generalized conditioned reinforcement andfunctions much like a name does (e.g., a child sees a plane flying by and says “plane” in thepresence of a caregiver). The process of teaching tacts can be facilitated by interspers-ing opportunities where, after emitting a tact, the child has the opportunity to mandfor the item (Costa & Pelaez, 2014; Nuzzolo-Gomez & Greer, 2004). When comparingthese verbal operants, a considerable difference between tacting and manding exist. Fora mand, the item in question does not need to be present in order for the child to emita mand; however, for a tact, the stimulus needs to be present because the tact is underthe control of that stimulus itself.

Intraverbals, Autoclitics, and Naming

Intraverbals are the verbal conversations that people have with each other every day.They can range from simple to very complex exchanges, and children start develop-ing their conversational abilities very early. Infant intraverbal responses in typically


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developing babies are usually very simple and are the foundation for more advancedcomplex language development. Intraverbal responses are controlled by a verbalstimulus and lack point-to-point correspondence with the verbal stimulus controllingthem. These verbal operants are typically maintained by generalized conditioned rein-forcement (Skinner, 1957). Starting at 2 years of age, children typically start speakingwords such as their name, “mama,” or “dada”; finish simple sentences; and respondto simple questions and word associations. They do not show the skills for complexconversations, but they typically have strong echoic responses, mands, and tacts aspart of their vocabulary. Between the ages of 2 and 3 years, verbal vocabulary typicallydevelops very rapidly (Sundberg & Sundberg, 2011).

Autoclitics are verbal behaviors that are contingent on other verbal behaviors and thatgive language its style and complexity (Skinner, 1957). They typically emerge later inchildhood. Autoclitics include syntactical word order, grammatical tagging, assertion,and negotiation. Children learn these distinctions through their experiences with theirenvironment, and this knowledge starts to show as they develop their vocabulary (Novak& Pelaez, 2004, p. 261).

In behavior analysis, language is a form of relational responding and is a developmen-tal process acquired through social learning (Hayes et al., 2002). Naming is a form ofrelational responding. Before naming becomes generative, a child first needs to learn alarge naming repertoire; that is, “(a) relatively novel naming relations can be developedwithout direct shaping, and (b) some naming responses can be maintained without rein-forcement as long as other naming responses are reinforced” (Pelaez-Nogueras, 1996,p. 300; see also Horne & Lowe, 1996). The syntactic development of child language is amore complex relational behavior because it involves forming a network of verbal rela-tions, making storytelling a typical verbal behavior of preschool-aged children.

Language Teaching

Moerk (1986) identified three behavioral characteristics used intuitively and regularlyby mothers to teach language to their children: high intensity of repetitions, frequencyof repetitions, and frequency of feedback.

High Intensity of Repetitions of Each of the Sentence Types by the CaretakerThis has three aspects. First is repetitiveness: Mothers are likely to repeat their modeledutterances over and over again, sometimes with minor variations. Second is priming (orprompting), in which mothers initiate retrieval of utterances in the child by asking thechild to name an item or to talk about a subject. Third is combining massed practicewith spaced rehearsals, where mothers enhance language skills by massing three to fiverepetitions of an utterance closely together.

The Effects of Frequency of Repetitions by Parents on Their ChildrenFindings (e.g., Brown, Cazden, & Bellugi, 1969) show a relationship between the fre-quency of use of a sentence type by parents and the order of appearance of the sentencetype by the child. Although Brown subsequently argued that no such frequency effectsexist (Brown, 1973; Cazden & Brown, 1975), Moerk (1986) has reanalyzed the same dataand found clear evidence for the effects of parental frequency on the emergence of childlanguage (see also Hart & Risley, 1995). Moerk (1983) originally estimated that the child


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(Eve) would have encountered each major sentence type about 100,000 times per month.The same child responded to all the sentence types between 500,000 and 1 million timesper month.

Frequent FeedbackCaretakers provide frequent feedback to their children, both positive feedback (or pos-itive reinforcement) and negative feedback (or punishment). In reanalyzing Brown’sdata, Moerk (1983) also found that mothers may correct their infants’ grammar around50 times per hour or nearly once every minute. Thus, caregivers’ corrections serve asa prompt (discriminative stimulus) to respond again, with the mother modeling thecorrect expansion of the child’s utterance. Not only do mothers correct their infants’grammatical errors most of the time but also, if the mothers correct the children or givethem eye contact, the children recommunicate their messages nearly 100% of the time.In contrast, only about 3% of messages accepted by the mother are restated by the child.

Summary of Language TeachingIn sum, language teaching and learning are two dynamic processes involving two-wayinteractions. In the process of influencing the child’s behavior by her own respond-ing, the mother’s behavior is also influenced. A longitudinal study by Hart and Risley(1995) estimated that an average child with parents on welfare heard 6,200 words perweek, an average child with working-class parents heard 12,500 words per week, and anaverage child with professional parents heard 21,500 words per week. Furthermore, theresearchers claimed that, by the time their child reached the age of 3, parents on welfarewould have emitted about 10 million words, working-class parents would have emittedapproximately 20 million words, and professional parents would have emitted about 30million words. Thus, by the age of 3, all children have had an enormously rich linguisticenvironment directed at them and the effects of multiple repetitions and feedback byparents are significant if somewhat varied according to socioeconomic status.

2 Early Social Development

The basic stage of early childhood also includes the important growth stage ofsocial–emotional development. This early social development lays the groundworkfor later social development skills that come into play in adulthood. As mentionedin the introduction, social development begins before the formal social stage andduring the basic stage, and as such these stages can fade into each other. This sectiondescribes socioemotional skills that are a crucial part of the basic stage and importantdevelopmental milestones including imitative behavior, exploratory behavior, play,autonomy, self-regulation, perspective taking, and rule-governed behavior.

Imitative Behavior

Imitation plays a critical role in children’s socioemotional development and languagelearning. During infancy, children express multiple emotions and also begin to identifyemotions exhibited by other people. Early on, infants begin to understand the meaningsof emotional expressions of others and their feelings. Also, in the first year of life, infants


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respond to various sensory stimuli differently as they grow older because their centralnervous system goes through a stunning number of changes. In the second year of life,not only do infants begin to see much more clearly but also their fine motor skills aretypically considerably more advanced.

Research supports the idea that imitative learning plays a critical role in the acqui-sition of knowledge and skills (Capuzzi & Stauffer, 2016). Some of the first studieson generalized imitation demonstrated that a young child’s imitative behavior canbe a functional response class established by the reinforcement of some but not allimitative responses (Baer & Sherman, 1964). Poulson, Kymissis, Reeve, Andreatos, andRichards (1991) extended this finding to generalized verbal imitation by increasing9- to 13-month-old infant reproduction of various caregiver sounds that had neverbeen previously reinforced. The importance of this finding is that not all children’simitative responses need to be reinforced; generalized imitation of language will occurif verbal imitation is intermittently reinforced.

Researchers have shown that children produce their own utterances to novel pictures.These utterances can contain the same type of phrase as was learned in the initial train-ing pictures but be novel in terms of their content (Whitehurst & Novak, 1973). Theycalled this behavior, which matched some aspect of the model’s utterance (i.e., syntax)with the addition of a novel utterance, selective imitation (Novak & Pelaez, 2004). Theseresearchers claimed that it is selective imitation and not the language acquisition devicethat may be responsible for the universal errors that appear in children’s misuse of pluralsand verb tenses, called overregularization.

Exploratory Behavior and Play

Bijou and Baer (1965) defined exploratory behavior as that “which may be treated func-tionally as a sequence of operant interactions [and] is strengthened and maintained bycontingent nonappetitive ecological stimuli under specifiable setting factors” (pp. 5–7).The ecological stimulus can be a physical object, some other biological function, or asocial individual. These encompass toys, flowers, and water, as well as a child’s own loosetooth. Toys can be played with, flowers can be smelled, and a tooth can be wiggled, allwith varied consequences. The stimuli that follow any of these actions strengthen thebehavior class preceding it. For example, if one experiences a sweet smell after holdinga flower to one’s nose, that stimulus (flower) has reinforcing properties (sweet smell)under those circumstances. Just as this behavior can be reinforced, the similar act ofholding a flower to one’s nose could easily produce a pungent odor and result in reduc-ing or eliminating the emission of similar behaviors on future occasions (not holding aflower to one’s nose). Exploratory behavior in itself can modify, extinguish, or strengthenbehavior classes.

Exploratory behavior is behavior that is reinforced by a consequence in the environ-ment that occurs under prescribed limits with physical interactions. Exploratory behav-ior is not form based; it is tied instead to the functional relationships involved. Thus,this behavior cannot be attributed to any specific motion that a child makes while inter-acting with the environment. In this context, Bijou (1976) proposed certain conditionsthat are necessary for exploratory behavior to occur: “(1) the absence of setting factorsthat increase the probability of behaviors that are more powerful than the exploratory


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behavior and thereby inhibit it and (2) the presence of setting factors that increase thereinforcing function of ecological stimuli” (p. 22).

Much of what is called exploratory behavior could easily be identified as playbehavior. Play is paramount during the basic stage as children spend the largest amountof time playing alone and with other children. Previously, in the early universal stagedescribed by Bijou and Baer (1965), the young infant learned how to accomplish theroutine aspects of living, such as feeding and sleeping, but the following basic stage isoccupied largely by engaging with the environment via play. During play activities, thechild learns how to interact with the world around them and with other children. Thechild learns the rules of the games and the cause-and-effect relationships involved inparticipating. In particular, during the basic stage, the child starts to develop parallelplay skills and cooperative play with other children. Within the domain of play skills areobject play, social games, and pretend play (to name a few). With play skills, childrencan practice shaping the skills that will be needed for emotional self-regulation andautonomy.

Autonomy

Autonomy is the ability to behave and make choices independently without being overlydependent on the assistance of others (Novak & Pelaez, 2011). Matte-Gangé, Bernier,and Lalonde (2015) conducted a study on stability in maternal autonomy supportthat measured its effect on the children’s later functioning and skill development.Seventy-four mother–child dyads participated in two visits. In these visits, the motherencouraged her child to complete tasks using positive feedback and a positive tone ofvoice. Mothers were encouraged to show flexibility and understand their child’s pointof view, follow their child’s pace, provide the child with choices, actively participatein their play, reduce the use of controlling techniques, and interfere and adjust thetask to the level of the child’s needs. Mothers who consistently promoted autonomousbehavior had children who were able to delay gratification, had a strong workingmemory, and were able to demonstrate that they could think about multiple conceptssimultaneously. The researchers concluded that mothers should behave consistentlyin order to promote autonomous behavior (Matte-Gangé et al., 2015). Behavior thatdenotes autonomy starts to develop in the early years, and so reinforcing behavior thatdenotes autonomy is very important. Autonomy and self-regulation can lead to youngchildren making good decisions and solving problems more efficiently (e.g., Cheng, Lu,Archer, & Wang, 2018).

Self-Regulation

Self-regulation skills have been correlated as markers of later life success, includingschool readiness (Blair & Raver, 2015). Self-regulation is when a child is able to coordi-nate multiple functions (e.g., behavioral, cognitive, physiological) in order to modulatetheir own behavior (Montroy, Bowles, Skibbe, McClelland, & Morrison, 2016). This is abehavioral skill and it develops rapidly during childhood; however, much like the otherskills discussed in this entry, not all children develop this ability at the same age. Mon-troy et al. (2016) conducted a study to identify the onset of self-regulation developmentand predictors and variables that contribute to this process. These researchers found


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that about 80% of children in their study developed self-regulation during the preschoolperiod, and these early developers demonstrated higher initial levels of self-regulationand earlier gains. The intermediate group had low initial self-regulation and then rapidgains. Finally, the later developers started with lower levels and then gained more slowlycompared to the first two groups. Children who had higher levels of expressive lan-guage at the start of preschool were more likely to display self-regulation skills earlier.As seen in the next section, rule following is a component of self-regulation. Based onbehavior-analytic approaches, self-regulation is a skill that can be taught. That is to say,a teacher or behavior analyst can identify and arrange the environmental contingen-cies and contextual conditions in such a way as to increase the probability of producingdelays in child gratification and “self-regulation.” The next section examines the role ofverbally specifying contingencies in children’s rule-governed behavior.

Rule-Governed Behavior

Skinner (1966, 1969) defined rule-governed behavior as discriminative respondingshaped by reinforcement of rule following, which is different from contingency-shapedbehavior. Rules verbally specify the reinforcement contingencies at play in a given sce-nario. The difference between direct-contingency-shaped and rule-governed behaviorrests on the functional properties and controlling variables of each (Cerutti, 1989).Contingency-shaped responding is behavior molded directly by its environmentalconsequences and can be under the control of nonverbal discriminative stimuli.Rule-governed behavior involves discriminative responding shaped by reinforcementof rule following. Rule-governed behavior, then, requires a child to have receptivelanguage and listening skills. For example, a child could pick up a recorder and teachthemselves how to play “Hot Cross Buns” versus learning how to play in class followinga teacher’s instruction. The self-taught child will have to stumble through findingthe correct notes, whereas in a class the child will be shown which notes to play insequence, drastically cutting down the time needed to master the skill. Rule followingis a characteristic of children in the later end of the basic stage, typically around 4to 5 years old. Rule following starts through imitation and later can evolve throughgeneralized imitation of role models such as parents, siblings, or peers.

A taxonomy of rules accounts for four dimensions of contingency arrangements spec-ified in the rule: (1) explicitness: explicit versus implicit; (2) congruency: accurate versusfalse or remote contingencies specified in the rule (they cannot be confirmed); (3) com-plexity: low versus high level of complexity; and (4) origin or source of the rule: providedby others or self-derived (Pelaez-Nogueras & Moreno, 1998, 1999). Herrera, Pelaez,Reyes, Figueroa, and Salas (2001) conducted a study to evaluate the hierarchical orga-nization of the taxonomy based on children’s psychological development and under-standing of language. These researchers studied whether rule following is a functionof behavior and aimed to identify whether learning rules extends through the proposeddimensions (i.e., explicitness, accuracy, complexity, and source of the rule). Herrera et al.(2001) tested 80 children from rural and urban areas at ages 4, 6, 8, and 10 who had eitheraverage or low comprehension of language. They developed a four-dimensional rulestracking instrument (IR4D) that integrated 16 structured rules according to the taxon-omy and implemented this instrument in each child’s school. The researchers foundthat both psychological development and the level of understanding of the subjects’


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language are related to the frequency of rule tracking. Moreover, the data supportedthe assumptions about the progressive extension of the taxonomy’s dimensions along achild’s development. The relationship between self-derived rules and emotional regula-tion awaits further empirical behavior-analytic investigation.

3 Attachment, Fears, and Prosocial Behavior

Smiling, crying, and grimacing are emotional responses that are present at birth. Theseneonatal reflexes play a large role in bonding and developing communication with care-givers and they set the stage for later socioemotional development. Learning theoristshave stressed that infant emotions can come under the control of positive reinforce-ment of the infant’s caregiver’s voice and touch stimuli (Gewirtz & Pelaez-Nogueras,2000; Pelaez et al., 2011a, 2011b). The caregiver is the person who often removes orterminates aversive stimuli for the infant and also provides the positive reinforcers forsurvival (e.g., food, warmth, touch). These parent responses can quickly become dis-criminative stimuli that signal reinforcement availability to the infant. An infant’s socialreflexes, such as smiling, soon become instrumental responses in evoking reinforcementfrom the parent. Siblings can also be sources of social reinforcement and furthermoreserve as role models for imitation.

Novak and Pelaez (2004) have described modeling thus: “During the preschool years,the child is exposed repeatedly to behaviors of role models that can be characterized as‘honest,’ ‘altruistic,’ and ‘just’ and to caregivers who provide reinforcing consequencescontingent on the child’s matching response” (p. 258). Conversely, the same child couldbe exposed to different sorts of models who exhibit poor behaviors and learn to imi-tate those instead. Jointly, all these learned social behaviors come together to shape thechild’s moral development. By the end of the basic stage, moral behaviors can occur aftera delay or in the absence of the original model and be maintained by group contingen-cies or group norms much like rule-governed behavior. A behavior-analytic approach tochildren’s learning of moral behavior via imitation and rule-governed morality has beendiscussed extensively elsewhere (see Bandura 1965; Pelaez-Nogueras & Gewirtz, 1995).

Attachment

During the basic stage of a child’s life, parents, caregivers, and teachers shape the child’sdevelopment in a variety of ways. Attachment is a learned phenomenon that emergesearly in development (Gewirtz & Pelaez-Nogueras, 1990). Infant attachment is charac-terized by dynamic patterns of behavior typically focused on the caregiver. Dykas andCassidy (2011) support Bowlby’s (1969) notion that “humans have evolved to developexperience-based mental representations (internal working models) of attachment rela-tionships and that such models function to assist individuals in gathering and interpret-ing information related to an array of social agents (such as parents, peers …)” (p. 19).From an evolutionary perspective as well as from a behavior-analytic approach, the waya caregiver treats their child will impact the child’s pattern of attachment.

Attachment security and parenting quality have been related to children’s problem-solving skills, attributions, and loneliness with peers (Raikes & Thompson, 2008). Tostudy attachment, these researchers used the Strange Situation procedure (Ainsworth,


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Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978), which involves infants and young children beingseparated from and reunited with their caregivers multiple times. This was done toassess the behavior attachment patterns of the children and it uncovered multiplepatterns of attachment such as secure, insecure, and avoidant. Raikes and Thompson(2008) then looked at data collected from this procedure at multiple age points between15 months and 36 months in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Devel-opment’s Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development database. The researchersconcluded that young children think about and respond to their social world byusing representations (cues) from their parents’ behaviors (Raikes & Thompson, 2008,p. 342). When an infant exhibits distress behaviors upon a caregiver’s departures andseparations then separation anxiety (denoted by infant protests and proximity seekingto the caregiver) can become a learned (conditioned) pattern of behavior (Gewirtz &Pelaez-Nogueras, 1992b).

Separation Anxiety

Children’s separation anxiety disorder is marked by excessive anxiety about separa-tion from parents or attachment figures (Bernstein & Borchardt, 1991). It occurs inroughly 3% of the population (Anderson, Williams, McGee, & Silva, 1987). Gewirtzand Pelaez-Nogueras (1991a, 1993) found that separation behaviors, such as protestsupon the parent’s departure, can result from operant learning (conditioning). Parentalbehavior during departures can cue the infant’s protests, so returning to the infant andproviding attention (such as talking or picking up the infant intermittently) can maintainhigh infant protest and crying rates (Gewirtz & Pelaez-Nogueras, 1993).

According to this behavior-analytic approach to attachment, both phylogenic andontogenic contingencies are responsible for this process. In an early experiment,Gewirtz and Pelaez-Nogueras (1991a) asked whether contingent maternal respondingto infant separation protests and whining would increase these behaviors in children.They predicted that tantrum behaviors seen upon separation could be reduced by redi-recting attention to toys to play via a differential reinforcement of other responses thanthe target response (DRO schedule). Twenty-three infants between the ages of 6 and11 months participated with their mothers in a laboratory setting. Via an earpiece, anexperimenter coached each mother to cue her departure by saying to her 9-month-oldinfant, “Bye, I am leaving,” and then waving and kissing her baby. The cues also involvedstanding up and picking up her purse before leaving the room for 3 minutes. Afterthe 3-minute trials, the mother returned to her infant and there was a break beforeany new trials were started. Two schedules of reinforcement were then compared:the differential reinforcement of other (DRO) behavior and continuous reinforcement(CRF). The DRO conditions produced fewer infant protests and more play behaviorswhile the CRF conditions elicited more protests. The researchers concluded thatseparation protest behaviors are learned operants that can be reversed. They suggestedthat this conditioning learning reflects the strength of what developmental psychologistcall security or insecurity of attachment patterns. Gewirtz and Pelaez-Nogueras (1992b)concluded that an infant’s separation difficulties and distress during this basic stageof early development often result from a history of parents inadvertently misplacingreinforcement contingencies.


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Fear Learning

During the first years of life, adverse experiences, traumas, and events that evoke a fearresponse can create lifelong neural pathways. Anxiety disorders developed in childhoodare one of the most prevalent forms of psychopathology and commonly persist intoadulthood (Bruce et al., 2005). Fearful behavior has historically been beneficial, withfight-or-flight responses typically signaling survival. However, when a fearful behaviordevelops abnormal patterns, anxiety disorders can arise.

Fear conditioning is a form of associative learning where a neutral conditioned stim-ulus (CS; e.g., a dark room) is repeatedly paired with an aversive stimulus (UCS; e.g.,a loud sound), which creates a CS–UCS association (e.g., every time the child enters adark room, they will hear a loud sound). This pairing results in the conditioned response(CR; e.g., grimace) being produced in response to the CS. Research conducted by Shech-ner, Hong, Britton, Pine, and Fox (2014) shows various different CRs of fear, such asautonomic activity (e.g., blood pressure), defensive behaviors (e.g., freezing, grimacing),endocrine response (e.g., hormone release), pain sensitivity (e.g., analgesia), and reflexresponses (e.g., rapidly blinking eyes). Shechner et al. (2014) studied fear conditioningand extinction across development and found that children’s ability to differentiate dan-ger and safety occurs through an associative process that emerges early on in life.

Counterconditioning

Counterconditioning involves introducing the CS or the feared stimulus in the pres-ence of stimuli-eliciting positive responses so that the feared stimulus elicits positiveemotional responses rather than negative ones in the child (for further explanation ofconditioning, see Novak & Pelaez, 2004). For example, a child who is scared of spidersmay be shown a spider (CS) while at the same time receiving their preferred blanket(pairing) until seeing the spider takes on the same emotional response as hugging theblanket (CR). Modeling interventions can also be achieved in naturalistic contexts byemploying the use of peer models to show that spiders are not scary and systematicallyreinforcing successive approximations to spiders. Behavior-analytic researchers haveconducted experimental demonstrations to show that young children around 1 year oldcan learn strategies via operant conditioning (Gewirtz & Pelaez-Nogueras, 2000). Theseresearchers demonstrated that fear-denoting protests are as readily conditioned in illu-minated contexts as in dark contexts via caregivers’ contingent attention and touch.These are behavior-analytic basic experimental preparations that can be used to studythe role of context in stimulus control (Pelaez & Monlux, 2018; Pelaez-Nogueras &Gewirtz, 1997). Children’s fear descriptions and avoidance preferences decrease fol-lowing positive counterconditioning and increase following fear counterconditioningregardless of the context.

Empathy and Moral Behavior

Social behaviors that are considered to be empathetic are important to researchersbecause empathy gives clues about what is motivating for an individual. Empathy,according to ethologists, is an early example of effective sharing that can originatein the playful exchanges between infant and mother (Pelaez, 2001, p. 12). Empathy


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originates very early in development and requires a child to have learned to referencethe emotions of caregivers (Novak & Pelaez, 2004). Empathic behavior require socialreferencing in order to interpret the feelings of others or use the cues to determinehow to respond when experiencing the emotions of others (e.g., pain, suffering). Due tothe difficulty of distinguishing empathy behaviorally, the study of its function has beenlimited in behavior analysis of early childhood and more research is needed.

Moral behavior is based on learning a set of moral rules. From a behavior-analyticstandpoint, moral behavior is a form of rule-governed behavior, which begs the ques-tion: How do rules come to acquire control over an individual’s behavior (e.g., altruisticbehavior)? Prosocial behaviors, and moral (verbal) judgments and actions, result froma child’s history of learning experiences with reinforcement or punishment contingen-cies and imitation (see Gewirtz & Pelaez-Nogueras, 1991b; Pelaez-Nogueras & Gewirtz,1995). By limiting our analysis to observable events (rather than inner causes), we canisolate the mechanisms at work and identify the variables influencing moral learning,such as the development of verbal regulation (Hayes, Gifford, & Hayes, 1998).

4 Development of Perspective Taking

According to McHugh, Barnes-Holmes, and Barnes-Holmes (2009), “perspective takingcomprises a complex set of derived relational abilities that are based on our under-standing of self, place, and time” (p. 281). Deictic verbal stimulus relations—such as“now-then” and “bigger–smaller”—are involved in a child’s development of perspectivetaking. A common assessment for deficits in perspective taking in young children usesthe classic Sally-Ann False-Belief Test (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985) where a childhas to correctly predict where a puppet would look for an object that the puppet hadobserved hidden in one location but that was later moved out of sight.

To demonstrate correct responding, the child would need to identify that the puppetwould look in the original spot where the item was hidden, not in the place to which theobject was moved. Similar iterations of the test involve showing a child a package, suchas a Smarties candy box, that is filled with something surprising, such as crayons, andasking them what another person would think was in the box; correct responding wouldbe to say Smarties, not crayons. Researchers such as McHugh et al. (2009) showed thatby age 5, perspective taking is well established in typically developing children. Similarly,Taylor and Carlson (1997) found that at younger age ranges (3 to 5 years), children hadmore errors than older participants (over 5 years old) on a variety of tests of perspectivetaking and deictic relational framing. The relationship between age and the number oferrors appears to be negatively correlated. Procedures using video modeling and rein-forcement to teach perspective-taking skills have been implemented with children withautism (see LeBlanc et al., 2003).

5 Early Child Behavioral Disorders

Typically, toward the later end of the basic development stage, most significant childbehavior disorders can be detected. However, some characteristics that place an infantat risk for developmental disorders, such as ASD, can be detected as early as 6 to 18


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months of age (Neimy et al., 2017). It is worth noting that behavior disorder labels aredescriptions of organized patterns of behavior and these labels should not serve as expla-nations. Many clinicians, such as school psychologists, erroneously treat a diagnosis ofa behavior disorder as the “cause” of the behavior problem rather than focusing on iden-tifying and teaching the child the missing skills (i.e., skills that are deficient or lacking inthe child’s behavioral repertoire).

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

One of the most prevalent childhood behavior disorders, identified by mainstreampsychologist in roughly 5% of the population (American Psychiatric Association [APA],2013), is attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD is characterizedby hyperactive, impulsive, and inattentive behavior and is typically identified inschool-aged children. While it is estimated that 20% to 30% of children diagnosed withADHD have a parent or sibling with the disorder (Nussbaum & Bigler, 1990), thereis no known single cause of the disorder. ADHD is usually diagnosed once childrenhave entered school (social stage) but there are some prior behavioral and cognitivecorrelates of later ADHD behavioral problems. These include regulatory disturbances,sleep problems, and social problems (Arnett, MacDonald, & Pennington, 2013).

The most widely used treatments for ADHD include pharmacological interventions,applied behavior analysis (ABA), and cognitive–behavioral therapy. Pelham andcolleagues (2000) evaluated whether there were differences in the outcomes of pharma-cological interventions with behavior therapy versus behavioral interventions withoutpharmacological interventions and found few differences. Their research contrasts withresearch from the MTA Cooperative Group (1999), whose members found a positiveeffect of including medications in their intense behavioral interventions. Medicationalone is not necessarily the best treatment for every child, and parents need to findother treatments, either alone or in combination with medication. Behavior-analytictreatments for children with ADHD can be very helpful and should be explored first.They include strategies such as parental training, contingency management, tokeneconomies, correspondence training, teaching self-management, and using responsecost (Mash, Barkley, & Francis, 1998).

Autism Spectrum Disorder

ASD is typically characterized by deficits in social and communicative behaviors aswell as behavior excesses and repetitive and stereotypic behaviors (APA 2013). Sincethe origin of this diagnosis, the definition has continually been changed, which mayaccount for some of the increases in diagnoses (Novak & Pelaez, 2011). As the word“spectrum” in the name implies, children with this diagnosis have a wide variety ofbehavioral challenges and skillsets and they fall across the developmental spectrum.There are a few early behavioral markers that can indicate a later diagnosis of ASD.These markers can be detected as early as 6 months but the gap between normallydeveloping children and at-risk children is typically more apparent by around 2 yearsof age; however, the average age of the diagnosis is closer to 5 years. Some of these earlysocial indicators of developmental delays include the child exhibiting “minimum eyecontact, lack of facial recognition, limited social initiations with caregivers, delayed


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joint attention, difficulty in tracking visually, infrequent smiles, difficulty attending tostimuli, and limited exploratory motor behaviors” (for a review of assessments andearly markers, see Neimy et al., 2017, p. 7).

Early treatments for ASD have largely been benefited by ABA principles that haveresulted in strategies that, taken together and applied early, are called early intensivebehavioral interventions. Lovaas (1987) pioneered the treatment of ASD at the Univer-sity of California, Los Angeles, in the 1960s by utilizing a systematic early interventionhome-based program. Through the use of positive reinforcement, systematic generaliza-tion programming, and functional assessment and through relying on three- to four-partcontingencies, the prognosis of many individuals on the spectrum has been made morepositive. Today, ABA is widely spread and is very successful as an intervention for ASD(for reviews see Mayville & Mulick, 2011; Pelaez, 2017).

Oppositional Defiant Disorder

Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is characterized by a child’s defiance and hostilebehavior towards authority figures (Novak & Pelaez, 2011). The APA (2013) describesthe disorder as a pattern of angry and/or irritable mood, argumentative and deviantbehaviors, and vindictiveness that is severe and that impairs a child’s daily life function-ing for at least 6 months. Symptoms of ODD typically start to show in the early preschoolyears, often with defiance behavior. The problem behavior becomes more apparent asthe child develops and is expected to abide by rule-governed behaviors and follow rules.

Most behavioral interventions for ODD include the family because it is usually duringfamily interactions at home that the problem of defiance begins (Patterson, 1982). Someinterventions are developed through parent training by teaching caregivers new skillsto manage the problem behaviors and to establish replacement or alternative behaviors.These techniques include shaping prosocial behaviors, modeling, didactic instruction,and role-playing. Reduction of oppositional behavior problems can also be accom-plished with contingency management strategies and careful use of token economies.These behavior-analytic techniques have proven to work effectively as interventionswhen they are properly implemented. The main goal of a good behavior-analytic inter-vention consists of teaching adaptive behaviors to children with the aim of enhancingtheir social and academic success (e.g., del Valle, Kelley, & Seoanes, 2001).

Behavioral interventions are often based on positive parenting modeling, and on nur-turing healthy and positive communication skills. Children learn that oppositional defi-ance behaviors are not an optimal way of interacting with others and getting their desiredresults. When a young child shows early signs of ODD, at this basic stage, it is importantto intervene early to minimize and reduce the risk of the child later developing a moreserious conduct disorder (del Valle et al., 2001). As discussed here, in recent years posi-tive gains have been made in early intervention programs where parents directly receiveABA training and participate in the intervention.

6 Conclusion

Taken together, the behavior-analytic approaches to early childhood learning ofsocial and cognitive skills presented here may help researchers and practitioners


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conceptualize the notion of development—in particular, the basic stage categories ofbehavioral development. Behavioral development research should focus on generatingapplied interventions to target the absence of known pivotal skills outlined here. Afunctional analysis should consider a nonlinear developmental progression that movesfrom simple to increasingly complex learning. In doing so, practitioners can rectifythe observed delays prior to their becoming deficits. The emphasis should be onreinforcement and shaping of early forms of communication, prosocial development(joint attention and social referencing), autonomy, and self-regulation, and on theprevention or mitigation of childhood disorders. ABA and parent training strategiescan be beneficial in the prevention and mitigation of childhood disorders, particularlywhen programing includes procedures for teaching social behaviors.

This entry has provided a rough elaboration of these basic social skills and also empha-sized that these skills do not develop linearly, nor do they directly depend on the child’sage. It has stressed that these skills often develop in tandem (Novak & Pelaez, 2004) andthat this is why it is important to identify the behavioral components required for newlearning and the contingencies and conditions that can maintain them. This elabora-tion would make the explanations described in this entry consistent with those in otherentries in this encyclopedia (i.e., those focusing on the natural science of the behavioralprinciples and processes), yet expand on them—the natural learning history. As a resultof the ongoing change in their interactions with their environment, young children’ssocial and cognitive behaviors are constantly developing. With guidance taken fromboth the developmental and the applied behavior-analytic fields, we can better predictand rectify skills deficits and produce more successful developmental trajectories.

SEE ALSO: Conceptual Foundations of the Behavior Analysis of Child Development;wecad051

History of the Behavior Analysis of Child Development; A Behavior-Analytic Theory ofwecad049wecad050 Child Development; Early Child Learning of Social and Cognitive Skills; Applied Behav-wecad072wecad076 ior Analysis; Learning in Infancy; Attachment Research; Prosocial Behaviors in Chil-wecad140wecad210wecad277

dren; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Speech Development; Emotion in Toddlers and Youngwecad392wecad125wecad157

Children; Learning, Cognition, and Emotion; Parent–Child Relationships; Empathy and

wecad182wecad408wecad473

Perspective Taking

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Martha Pelaez (PhD, Florida International University, 1992) is a Frost Professor atFlorida International University, USA, where she has twice received a Faculty ResearchAward (1997 and 2015). Her research has been supported by National Institutes ofHealth grants. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and hasauthored over 100 peer-reviewed articles and monographs including a widely usedtextbook Child and Adolescent Development (with G. Novak, 2004, SAGE). She is thefounding editor (1991–2017) of the Behavioral Development Bulletin and has beena visiting scholar at 13 universities in six countries. Her areas of research includetopics such as infant learning, joint attention, social referencing, stimulus equivalence,and attachment, as well as the effects of maternal depression, touch, adult vocalimitation, and motherese speech on infant vocalizations and attention. She is currentlyinvestigating the behavior of infants “at risk” of autism.Katerina Monlux (MS, California State University, Northridge, 2015) holds an MS inapplied behavior analysis (ABA) and a BA from the University of California, Davis. HerPhD in ABA is currently in progress via a collaboration between Oslo Metropolitan Uni-versity, Norway, and Stanford University, USA. She is a Board Certified Behavior Analystand has been working in the field for over 11 years with research interests includingtelehealth, early markers of developmental delays, and naturalistic intervention strate-gies. She has published in peer-reviewed journals in addition to presenting annually atnational and international conferences on topics ranging from parent training to earlyintervention and telehealth-delivered service models.


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The abstract and keywords will not be included in the PDF or any printed versionof your article, but are necessary for publication on Wiley’s online publishing plat-form to increase the discoverability of your article.If the abstract and keywords are not present below, please take this opportunity toadd them now.The abstract should be a short paragraph up to 200 words in length and keywordsbetween 5 to 10 words.

ABSTRACTThis entry stresses the importance of the learning of early communication skillssuch as joint attention, social referencing, and vocalizations and provides somelanguage and skill-teaching techniques. From a behavior analytic approach, thisentry also highlights the learning of social skills (such as infant imitation), play,advanced language skills (such as echoics, manding, tacting, interverbals, autoclitics,and naming), autonomy, self-regulation, and rule-governed behavior. Studies on thelearning of infant attachment, fear, empathy, and perspective taking are outlined. Thelast section discusses some of the typical child behavioral disorders, such as anxiety,attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and oppositionaldefiant disorder and identifies behavior-analytic interventions. The behavior-analyticframework of this entry contrasts with the popular stage theories in mainstreamdevelopment and provides clinicians, psychologists, and behavioral practitioners withstrategies they can use to minimize potential pivotal skill deficits in children.

KEYWORDSbehavior analysis; child development; child learning; early communication skills; infantdevelopment; infant learning

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