Describe The Findings And Conclusions Of Gardner

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Describe the findings and conclusions of Gardner and Gardner’s research teaching sign language to a chimpanzee. Over the 22 months of Washoes training, 30 words were learnt. During the first 7 months 4 sings were learnt, by 14 months 13 sings were learnt and by 21 months the final 30 sings were learnt (more, up, sweet, open, tickle, go, out, hurry, hear-listen, toothbrush, drink, hurt, sorry, funny, please, food-eat, flower, cover-blanket, you, napkin-bib, brush, ha, shoe, pants, clothes, cat, key, baby, clean. ` The Gardners found that getting Washoe to imitate was easy, however it was not until the 16th month of work that the Gardners had any control over the gestures, as Washoes gestures would sometimes be incorrect, however by simply repeating the signs she improved. The Gardners also encouraged Washoe to babble by clapping, smiling and repeating, especially when the babble resembled an ASL sign. The sign for funny was learned this way. The Gardners also used instrumental conditioning to teach Washoe, this technique was used in the early months. During playtime Washoe would indicate she wanted more tickles by placing the researchers hands on her rib. The Gardners decided to shape this response so she could use it for requesting more tickling. They notices that when being tickled Washoe tended to bring her arms together to cover the area being tickled which appeared to be very similar to the ASL sign for more. Washoe soon associated the sign with the result of tickling. Washoes language development resembled in the process that occurs in Human children in three ways; 1. Differentiation. Over time Washoe came to use the sign for flower to include reference to odours, for example when cooking. The Gardners taught Washoe a new sign for smell using passive shaping and prompting. Washoe soon learnt to tell the difference between the two signs. 2.

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