Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Training Infant Reaching using Mother’s Voice as Reinforcer

2004; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 5; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/15021149.2004.11434230

2377-729X

Jean‐Claude Darcheville, Catherine L. Boyer, Y. Miossec,

Hearing Impairment and Communication

Reaching is considered to be a mature response in infants when they are 5 months old. The emergence of reaching is traditionally attributed to the maturation of cortical or cognitive structures. It is suggested that the reaching response could emerge from the operant contingencies taking place during, mother-infant interactions. Infants younger than 2months were placed in an experimental situation in which precise spatial positioning of the hand led to a contingent presentation of the mother's voice in the first experiment and in a random noncontingent presentation of the mother's voice in the second experiment. The results show that only contingent presentation of the mother's voice increased reaching suggesting that reaching is an operant response.