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Biomedical subjects

R L Morgan

Publications and source records attributed to R L Morgan.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

Effects of video-assisted training on employment-related social skills of adults with severe mental retardation.

Two studies investigated effects of video-assisted training on employment-related social skills of adults with severe mental retardation. In video-assisted training, participants discriminated a model's behavior on videotape and received feedback from the trainer for responses to questions about video scenes. In the first study, 3 adults in an employment program participated in video-assisted training to request their supervisor's assistance when encountering work problems. Results indicated that participants discriminated the target behavior on video but effects did not generalize to the work setting for 2 participants until they rehearsed the behavior. In the second study, 2 participants were taught to fix and report four work problems using video-assisted procedures. Results indicated that after participants rehearsed how to fix and report one or two work problems, they began to fix and report the remaining problems with video-assisted training alone.

Adult

Current transition assessment practices.

Although researchers have called for a movement away from prediction-related assessments to those which identify specific skill deficits, the extent to which professionals responsible for vocational assessment have shifted their focus is uncertain. The purpose of this investigation was to assess the frequency with which specified prediction-related and skill deficit-related vocational assessment procedures were administered by a sample of secondary-level teachers and employment training specialists. Additionally, the frequency with which these professionals used assessment data to aid in decision making was determined. The results revealed that teachers and employment training personnel used a variety of assessment procedures to make transition decisions. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Aptitude Tests

Regulating behavioral procedures for individuals with handicaps: review of state department standards.

We reviewed standards (i.e., mandatory policies or recommended guidelines) from 39 state departments of special education and 41 state departments of developmental disabilities/mental retardation (DD/MR) to determine how they addressed the use of behavioral procedures. Results indicated that many standards described procedures to change behaviors of individuals with handicaps and identified ways to regulate usage. Major findings were that (a) standards from state departments of DD/MR addressed behavioral procedures more frequently than standards from special education departments; (b) many standards addressed procedures to decrease, but not increase, behavior; (c) several standards identified safeguards to clients' rights, such as prior approval requirements and periodic review of behavioral procedures' effects; (d) some standards prohibited and/or restricted the use of specific procedures, such as those judged to be aversive; (e) about one-fifth of special education standards and two-thirds of DD/MR standards described staff training requirements for using some procedures; and (f) relatively few standards used decision models to select behavioral procedures. Implications of these findings for policy makers, service providers, and future research efforts are discussed.

Aversive Therapy

Small cell carcinoma: combined approach to treatment.

Fifty-six patients with untreated small cell carcinoma of the bronchus were treated with three courses of chemotherapy (cyclophosphamide, vincristine, and procarbazine and methotrexate) and assessed for response. Thirty-one patients (55.4%) were classified as responders; they were given a course of radiotherapy and were then randomly allocated to continued cyclical chemotherapy or not further chemotherapy until relapse. Non-responders to chemotherapy were treated with radiotherapy or palliatively. The median survival was 10.5 months in responders and 6 months in non-responders (P less than 0.01). The one-year survival in responders was 42%. There was no statistical difference in survival between patients treated with continued chemotherapy and those treated at relapse. Sixty-nine per cent of patients experienced no side effects from chemotherapy. Three indicators of non-response to chemotherapy were identified--exercise tolerance at diagnosis, macroscopic liver metastases, and inappropriate ADH secretion.

Adult

Immunization of suckling pigs against enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli-induced diarrheal disease by vaccinating dams with purified 987 or K99 pili: protection correlates with pilus homology of vaccine and challenge.

Pregnant gilts were vaccinated with purified strain 987 pili (987P), strain K99 pili, or a saline-formaldehyde control. Suckling pigs born to vaccinated gilts were allowed to consume colostrum and were then challenged intragastrically with one of three enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli strains: 987 (O9:K103, 987P:NM), 74-5208 (02O:K101, 987P:NM) or 431 (O101:K30, 99:NM). In litters where the dam was vaccinated with the same pilus as that possessed by the challenge organism, the incidence and duration of diarrhea and the degree of intestinal colonization (either duration or extent) were less than those of the other vaccine groups. Surviving pigs in the homologous vaccine groups also had better weight gains than pigs in the other vaccine groups. The experiments extend and confirm previous reports that vaccination of the dam with purified pili confers protection to neonatal suckling pigs against diarrheal disease caused by enterotoxigenic E. coli strains that possess the same pili. Protection did not extend to enterotoxigenic strains possessing different pili.

Animals

Results of treating primary tumours of the trachea by irradiation.

Forty-four patients presented with primary tumours of the trachea over a 25-year period. Thirty-nine of them were treated by irradiation. Of these, 24 (61.5%) died as a result of their disease while 30% are either alive and well (4.4-11 years) or have died of intercurrent disease (average four years). Recurrences or metastases when they occurred were in the first two years after diagnosis in all but one patient, who developed local recurrence 3.25 years later. Three patients died of unknown cause (average 5.6 years) after irradiation. Two factors seem to determine the prognosis: the histology and the extent of disease on presentation. Dysphagia without oesophageal involvement carried a grave prognosis.

Adult

Combination chemotherapy for small cell carcinoma of the lung.

Sixty-one patients with proven small cell carcinoma of the bronchus were treated by a five-drug pulsed chemotherapy schedule involving cyclophosphamide, vincristine, Adriamycin, methotrexate and prednisolone, given at four-week intervals. The response rate was 60%. All patients also received radiotherapy (4000-5000 rad) to the primary lesion. Survival was identical whether radiotherapy was given first or between the second and third courses of chemotherapy. The survival of responding patients was significantly prolonged as compared both with the non-responders in this series and with a similar group of patients treated only by radiotherapy in this hospital in 1970. The poor results in patients resistant to chemotherapy reflect the fact that 88% of the patients had disseminated disease at the time of diagnosis. The survival of responding patients was not improved over that reported by others as a result of incorporating Adriamycin and prednisolone into the schedule, so there seems no justification for using them in future treatments based on this pattern of chemotherapy. It was possible to identify all responding patients within six weeks of initiating chemotherapy, and a delay of this duration did not affect the efficacy of radiotherapy. Radiotherapy, however, frequently interfered with the subsequent assessment of response to chemotherapy. It therefore seems obligatory to give chemotherapy before radiotherapy in order to determine which patients will benefit from subsequent drug treatment.

Adult

Secondary liposarcoma of the ovary.

This report is the first description of a secondary ovarian liposarcoma. The primary growth was in the mediastinum. The growth rate of the ovarian tumor was very rapid, but the patient died of cardiopulmonary causes. The mode of spread is discussed, and it probably occurred by transcelomic migration and surface implantation.

Adult