A PB behavior analysis (see Staats, 1957) first presented the behavior modification principles (1) that abnormal behaviors could be inadvertently produced by reinforcement (even by hospital staff), (2) and that these behaviors could be treated by (3) non-reinforcement (called extinction), and (4) by reinforcement of normal or desirable behaviors. Ayllon and Michael (1959) demonstrated these principles with psychotic patients. Thereafter there were many other published demonstrations of the principles. For example, those principles were the basis for the behavioral approach to pain, and its treatment, formulated by Fordyce (see 1990). (A broader theory of pain was later formulated and researched by Staats, P., Hekmat, & Staats, 1990.)

The first PB book (Staats, 1963), however, presented a much more complete and profound behavioral approach to abnormal behavior and thus provided a much richer foundation for constructing a behavioral clinical approach. PB said that various types of problem behaviors and behavior disorders could be treated employing its behavior modification principles. And this program was quickly followed yielding various new studies (see Krasner & Ullmann, 1965; Staats, 1964; Ullmann & Krasner, 1965).

Many of those who became behavior therapists in the United States did so as a consequence of this PB presentation. That pertained also to the behavioral books that followed. However, influenced by radical behaviorism’s animal-oriented approach changing behavior via language was not recognized by the early behavior modifiers. However, PB was the first to recognize the potential of verbal psychotherapy within the behavioral framework, calling its projection "verbal learning psychotherapy."

[I]t is . . . important to point out that it should be possible for psychotherapy , in any of the areas of behavioral maladjustment discussed herein, to take place on a verbal level. Deficit behaviors, inappropriate behaviors, stimulus control, the reinforcer system, should all be accessible to change through verbal means. Thus, as was suggested . . . , language . . . may be used to control other motor behaviors or to establish new motor sequences. In this manner behaviors in which the individual was deficient could be acquired through verbal means, or inappropriate behaviors could be changed. Stimulus control could also be established in the same manner; and reinforcers could be changed, extinguished, or established through communication. Through verbal psychotherapy, reasoning sequences appropriate to physical and social events could be established. . . . [as well as a] verbal repertoire concerning one's own behavior, one's needs, . . . experiences, and so on. Without these verbal responses, the individual could not engage in the reasoning and problem-solving of which he would otherwise be capable. Another function of verbal therapy is the extinction of avoidance or anxiety responses (Staats, 1963, p. 509).

Published in 1963 the conception has great modernity and thus was ahead of the time. There were no other such developments, no other cognitive behavior therapies. Actually it was too far ahead of the time. There was too much radical behaviorism opposition to verbal psychotherapy in the nascent behavioral movement and the PB position was not adopted. So in 1972 the PB opening was elaborated in an article, entitled "Language Behavior Therapy" that was published in Behavior Therapy under Cyril Franks' editorship. It introduced the term "cognitive behavior therapy.” Still radical behaviorists generally and specifically rejected the language behavior therapy of psychological behaviorism out of hand. It was not until 16 years later that radical behaviorists accepted that which had already been proven, that is, that a behaviorally driven psychotherapy could supply successful treatment (see (Hamilton, 1988), even then restricting itself to operant conditioning principles.

PB also contributed centrally to the origins of child behavior therapy. Staats began the PB program in 1958 to study reading and problems of reading, using his token reinforcer system and reading training materials that could be easily administered, insured the children’s success, and that could readily record the children’s responses and the reinforcers they received. Applied to reading-disordered children the program was successful, and it was a successful foundation for a U.S. Office of Education research grant. The first study, done with Montrose Wolf, Richard Schutz, and Carolyn Staats (1962), extended the findings to preschool children. Four year old children became attentive students and good learners in a reading task--working in 40-minute sessions--when they were reinforced. When they were not reinforced their attention lagged, they stopped learning, and they no longer wished to participate. Mont Wolf carried the PB orientation, including the PB token-reinforcer system, to the University of Washington to Sid Bijou's project with mental retardates. Bijou, Birnbrauer, Kidder, & Tague (1966, p. 512) later said that they had been obtaining "[l]ittle, if any, improvements in sustained studying behavior" but introduction of the PB token reinforcer system "did indeed establish and maintain higher rates of effective study and greater cooperation." Bijou (1965, p. 73) also patterned his teaching of reading after the method Staats had introduced into the 1962 study of four-year-olds learning to read. In that period also Staats and Butterfield (see1965) began a study of a 14-year-old delinquent Chicano boy who did not read, had never passed a school course, and was a terrible behavior problem (see Staats & Butterfield, 1965). Butterfield worked with the boy using Staats’ remedial reading teaching materials and token reinforcement system and completely changing the boy’s learning. In four and a half months of half hour training sessions five times a week the boy’s reading achievement advanced from the second grade reading level to the 4.3 grade level and he passed all his school courses and showed general improvement in school behavior. Staats also began to systematically produce and research the learning of infants with the birth of his daughter Jennifer in 1960. This was a broad program of longitudinal study of child development that involved training her in sensory-motor repertoires (walking, eye-hand coordinations, writing), and language-cognitive repertoires (language, counting, reading) at times earlier than they would normally develop. A videotape has been linked to this website for those who are interested in accessing this very early and unique behavioral research.

These studies an the prior research with non-readers constituted the first behavior analytic studies treating real complex behaviors and developmental disabilities using reinforcement principles. This began a new type of study of natural behaviors. New dependent variables were employed. On the basis of this research and its findings Staats projected a program of development as indicated in my 1963 book and the Staats and Butterfield (1965) and Staats, Finley, Minke, & Wolf (1964) articles. The projected program employed the new methodology, new materials, new procedures and apparatus, and especially a new framework for researching and treating a wide variety of problems. For example, in my 1963 book I specifically stated that the methods should be applied to training special populations such as autistic children and mentally retarded children since "many . . . are only victims of poor training conditions," (Staats, 1963, p.456), as well as to deaf children, children with developmental academic disorders, and other special populations of children as well as adults with deficits such as schizophrenia and illiteracy. I also suggested that these methods should be used with various kinds of behavior problems including complex behavioral repertoires, language, reading, arithmetic, mathematics, sensory-motor skills, feeding problems, problems of toilet training, crying, dependent behavior, and such (see Staats, 1963, p. 456 and chapter 9). In addition, I said that applications should be made to a "variety of situations, such as settlement houses, homes for juvenile delinquents, prison training programs, adult education" (Staats & Butterfield, 1965, p. 939). In another analysis I projected the design of nursery school and kindergarten classes in which, and I quote, "reinforcers present in these school situations. . . [such as] games, recesses, toys, snacks, rest periods, television, desirable activities of various kinds . . . . [would be] incorporated into a . . . token system" (Staats, 1963, p. 457), with the tokens employed in the training of reading and such. These works and the projected program can be said to have begun the field of child behavior analysis and to have affected greatly adult behavior analysis. There were no other works at that time doing these things. There were no other projections of these behavioral methods--projections that constituted a blue print for the developments that began to occur within a year or two and that are still topics of development in behavior analysis and behavior therapy (see Staats, 1996).

It is important to recount these historical items because science is structured to follow empirical success, and PB has continued to develop its clinical psychology approach and now suggests new avenues of development. Its broad overarching theory--that connects child development, personality, personality testing, along with its theory of abnormal behavior—provides the basis for integrating various clinical concepts, principles, and methods and dealing with a wide array of clinical problems.

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