I/'anderbilr University Summary.-A mute 23-yr.-old woman, diagnosed as catatonic schizophrenic, received systematic reinforcement therapy from personnel on her ward (three aides and another patient). Employing food reward and social approval, and assisted by a simple electronic device, this treatment reinstated a substantial degree of verbal communication. 6 mo, later, on an "open" ward, the patient was judged to be satisfactorily adjusted although she continued to converse only with her roommate. Among the pioneering efforts to treat hospitalized patients within an operant paradigm, several researchers suggested that systematic reward could be successfully employed to reinstate verbal behavior in mute psychotic patients (e.g., Isaacs, Thomas, & Goldiamond, 1960; Sherman, 1963). Further, more recent and extensive investigations have included rigorous control procedures (such as differential reinforcement for other behavior), thereby substantially strengthening the conclusions inferred from earlier work with mute patients (Sherman, 1965; Wilson & Walters, 1966). Thus, it may now be posited with reasonable confidence that establishing a reward contingency for verbal behavior will often be the sufficient condition for partial reinstatement of meaningful speech. Once the o~~tline of successful procedures for clinical intervention has been established, it is clearly desirable to pursue strategies which will make implementation of such techniques increasingly more economical. Thus, the present paper reports the attempted application of reinforcement therapy with a near-mute patient using aides and a non-mute patient as behavioral technicians. In addition to describing procedures for replacing professional therapists by behavioral technicians, the report also describes a device which was developed to aid the technicians' discrimination of appropriate responses and thus reduce arbitrary judgmental influences that might otherwise contaminate the procedure. Clinical and Historical Data The patient, Martha, was a 23-yr.-old white female who had been in and out of hospitals since the age of 15. At the time reinforcement procedures were instituted, she had been hospitalized continuously for 4 yr., resided in a "locked" 'Grateful acknowledgement is due to the staff and administrative personnel of Central State Hospital, whose cooperation and efforts were invaluable. The assistance of John P. Ora, who served as T during Session 1, and of Mark McSwiney, who designed and constructed the voice apparatus, is also acknowledged.