Alexandra Rutherford

This is a history of the early application of B.F. Skinner's concepts and principles to change human behavior. The concepts and principles were tentatively applied to people at first, but gradually the entire field of applied behavior analysis emerged during the 1960s. These are the stories of the early pioneers working in a variety of applied settings. Rutherford in a capable writer and has keen insights into the nature of the successes and failures. A significant omission is behavioral work in the field of teaching autistic children verbal skills. This has turned out to be a key area of success and it would be interesting to learn more of its history from someone with Rutherford's abilities as a researcher and writer.… (more)