9. Whose book, entitled Verbal Behavior, posited the idea that children learn to speak by means of reinforcement techniques in the same way that other animals can be taught nonverbal behaviors?

B. F. Skinner

Benjamin Whorf

Noam Chomsky

John B. Watson

A). B. F. Skinner.

Explanation:

B. F. Skinner, the highly acknowledged psychologist as well as greatly admired behaviorist and philosopher in his book designated 'Verbal Behavior' proposed the idea that the children learn speech patterns through similar reinforcement techniques to learn to speak as employed by animals to acquire non-verbal behaviors.

He illustrated this through the use of an experiment that shows how an animal learns to react to get their food that functions as a 'reward' which exemplifies positive reinforcement. Identically, a child learns to speak through the prompts in the form of praise or admiration which evokes a positively reinforced behavior from them. Therefore, option A is the correct answer.