Word: behavioristic
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Many animal-behavior experts also oppose zoo confinement for giraffes, gazelles and other animals designed by evolution to run freely across miles of savannah. "What you see in zoos is just completely unnatural," says Marc Bekoff, an animal behaviorist at the University of Colorado. But most of all, Bekoff and his colleagues oppose the constraints imposed on elephants. "The only place I have seen truly happy elephants in captivity," says Hancocks, "is in the two elephant sanctuaries in the U.S. [in Tennessee and California]. Once you've seen how wonderful their lives are there, you realize whatever zoos...
...particularly appreciated Wallis' reporting on the two autism intervention programs, Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and Floortime. The behaviorist method of ABA may still be the predominant approach, but Floortime's child-directed, playfully interactive techniques are also changing children's lives. My son attended a preschool using Floortime, and it made all the difference in the world. He blossomed there and is now a bright child with an active social life in a mainstream elementary school. I hope Wallis' story helps parents who are still in the painful early stages of this journey...
...psychologist B.F. Skinner, who showed--mostly in animals--that behavior can be altered with carefully repeated drills and rewards. In 1987, Ivar Lovaas at UCLA published a small study with huge repercussions. He reported that 9 out of 19 autistic children taught for 40 hours a week with behaviorist methods had big jumps in IQ and were able to pass first grade; only 1 out of 40 in control groups did so. It was the first bright ray of hope in autism...
...TerraMar Research on Bainbridge Island, Wash., animal behaviorist Toni Frohoff has also observed dolphins behaving with what appears to be altruism--although not predictably. In one case, she recalls, she and her colleagues watched a group of dolphins assemble around a female swimmer the researchers later learned was exhausted to the point at which she was afraid for her life. "Conversely," Frohoff says, "I have been 'abandoned' [by dolphins], where all of a sudden they'd disappear and I'd see a shark...
...remain. Parents may even face a complete change of lifestyle. A large, arthritic dog, for example, may no longer be able to climb steps to sleep near its owner. "I've known people to actually move their bedroom downstairs to accommodate the dog," notes John C. Wright, an animal behaviorist at Mercer University in Macon...