Observational Learning Absent

Children require direct instruction to acquire new operants and cannot benefit from observing others receive consequences. Child may not survive in large student-teacher ratio classroom setting. It is likely that the presence of this cusp is essential for learning success in general education classes [31] .

Reinforcement Shift

From direct instructional reinforcement to vicarious stimulus control for consequences received by others.

Observational Learning Present

There are four different types of observational learning [91] :

Observational learning for performance: one changes behavior from the delivery of vicarious reinforcement to others;

Observational learning for acquisition of new operants: one learns through indirect contact with the contingencies of reinforcement and correction feedback;

Observational learning for conditioned reinforcement: one expands one’s community of reinforcement without direct pairings or instructor conditioning procedures

Peer attention: one demonstrates active observations of peers and changes one’s behavior based on the observations.