ABSTRACT
Behaviour modification exercises only a modest influence on neuropsychological rehabilitation. Before evaluating the limits encountered by behaviour modification when confronted with neuropsychology, it is necessary to present briefly some characteristics of neuropsychological disorders and analyse the incidence of various environmental variables on their evolution. In the kind of fundamental research, the explicit goal has been to assess the so-called general learning capabilities of aphasic patients. Many of the so-called non-verbal learning tasks leave open the possibility of a verbal coding of the stimuli to be discriminated. The general principles of programmed teaching were observed: progression in small steps, immediate correction of errors, and self-administration. The theoretical basis of group work as emphasised by L. M. Bloom lies in the functional analysis of verbal behaviour as proposed by B. F. Skinner. An original contribution to aphasiology by the behaviour modification school is the technique developed with chimpanzees by R. Premack.
