Scenario Response 1

As a Site Coach for a Communication and Social Skills Program.  I mainly work with children diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum Disorder.  We teach according to the Applied Behavior Analysis Principles therefore, naturally I am going to lean towards the Behaviorist theory.  Although the child is repeating what is heard I do believe in learned behavior.  I see it firsthand every day at work.  Therefore, I feel if a child listens and repeats what is heard enough, they will learn.   My 1st year as a teacher I had a student with limited verbal skills, I would spoil him and give him anything he used his words to ask for or "imitate me" to ask for.  My paraprofessionals would tell him gone back there with your mama, because they said I spoiled him.   Then his biological mother stole his VCR.  He came in to school the next day angry with me yelling "grandma say, grandma say you got my stuff!".  We later put 2 and 2 together after speaking with his grandmother and realized that because my paraprofessionals called me his mama, he imitated that so much he learned in his head that I was his mama, and he assumed that I was the mama that stole his stuff. I said all that to say this, yes they do learn in those quiet moments.