Pioneers in pediatric psychology: environments shape behavior.

Abstract

Since my first immersion in the medical environment in 1975, I have had the opportunity to participate in and develop a number of different environments of care and types of services for children, adolescents, and their families. I am reminded that the famous philosopher Yogi Berra once said “You can observe a lot just by watching.” I continue to be impressed by the unique and ever-changing benefits to children’s health brought about by pediatric psychologists. I want to thank my colleagues for bestowing on me the opportunity to reflect on my personal experiences and the growth of our field. When I arrived at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) to begin my undergraduate education, it was my career goal to become a physicist. However, my path changed very quickly. I was lucky to have had the opportunity to study with a number of outstanding psychologists. I can remember my first course in learning theory taught by David Premack, PHD, of Premack Principle fame. Simply put, the Premack Principle states that a more-preferred activity can be used to reinforce a less-preferred activity (Premack, 1959). Even though his original work was done with monkeys, its application to humans was apparent. In another of my classes, we watched the film “Behavior Modification: Teaching Language to Psychotic Children” (Lovaas, 1969). In essence, Dr Ivar Lovaas had applied his own learning research, the Premack Principle, and other findings from the basic research literature to develop a method to teach mute or echolalic autistic children how to speak and use language!