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Biomedical subjects

A VanBiervliet

Publications and source records attributed to A VanBiervliet.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

Families of young technology-dependent children and the social worker.

Health care social workers are increasingly providing services to young children who are technology-dependent through participation on individualized family service plan (IFSP) teams, as well as in clinical settings. Such participation suggests that new models for assessing the impact of medical technologies on family functioning will, of necessity, also begin to emerge. Assessment implications from a family systems perspective are presented that may be used to guide the development of future assessment strategies for health care social workers.

Caregivers

Tentative findings of a study of the technology needs and use patterns of persons with mental retardation.

An examination of the technology use patterns and needs of 680 persons with mental retardation was conducted as part of a grant application process in response to P. L. 100-407, the Technology-Related Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities Act of 1988. Important trends which were deemed valuable for state technology planning purposes were revealed which have implications for other states desiring to develop comprehensive technology systems. Responses obtained from participants indicated that needs for technology were evident in all areas of life functioning, with computer technology being reported as the area of greatest need. Most respondents reported spending less than $1000 for their technology and more than half expressed that a credit plan would have been helpful in purchasing needed technology. Transportation services was reported to be an area of need for many persons participating in the study. More than half the participants indicated the need for more information relating to technology.

Activities of Daily Living

An ecobehavioral examination of a simple strategy for increasing mealtime language in residential facilities.

Typically in large residential facilities for retarded person, meals are served in an institutional style that does not appear to encourage appropriate peer interactions. An ecological program alternative is serving meals in a family style. The present study was designed to examine both the feasibility of serving family style meals and the effects of family style meal service on mealtime language. Five retarded young adult male residents, who had some conversational skills and appropriate table manners, participated in this study. The experimental design involved a multiple baseline analysis across meals (dinner, lunch, and breakfast). Observers coded the youths' mealtime verbalizations according to the type, content, and direction of the verbalizations and they recorded the length of the meals. The analysis of the verbalization data indicated that during family style meals the participants spoke substantially more often than during institutional style meals. Increases in peer-directed conversation about the meals primarily accounted for the verbalization changes. Family style serving also resulted in the youths spending more time with their meals. In addition, social validation measures suggested that the family style procedures were preferred by the consumers (participants, staff, and concerned community members).

Adolescent

Teaching number-word equivalences: a study of transfer.

The study was designed to determine whether retarded adolescents and nonretarded preschool children would generalize to other tasks involving printed number names if they were taught the number names in an auditory-receptive task. Four nonretarded preschool children and three retarded children participated. All children could count and use spoken and printed numerals. None of the children could adequately perform any task involving printed number words. After receiving training on an auditory-receptive task involving printed number words, all children improved their performance on tasks involving matching printed number words and numerals and printed number words and sets and improved in their ability to name printed number words.

Achievement

Establishing words and objects as functionally equivalent through manual sign training.

This study was designed to determine if sign-object and sign-word training would lead to acquisition of word-object associations and to test the proposal that if two stimuli control the same response, training a new response to one of the stimuli would increase the probability of the second stimulus also controlling that response. The participants were six institutionalized retarded males, each having some receptive and productive speech as well as imitative motor and verbal skills. Nonsense words, signs, and objects were used as the stimuli in this study. All participants were sequentially trained to: (a) pair the objects with their identical matches, (b) imitate the manual signs, (c) pair the manual signs with the objects, (d) imitate the nonsense words, and (e) pair the manual signs with the words. Following this training, participants were given receptive and productive word-object association probes. All participants performed at an 87 percent correct level or better on the first receptive probes, and all performed at a 73 percent correct level or better on the first productive probes. These individuals demonstrated that following sign-object and sign-word training, they could correctly associate the word with the object.

Adolescent