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Biomedical subjects

R P Barrett

Publications and source records attributed to R P Barrett.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1988

The assessment of mood and affect in developmentally disabled children and adolescents: the Emotional Disorders Rating Scale.

There is an unmet need for a reliable method of evaluating disorders of mood and affect in developmentally disabled children and adolescents. Such a measure is required for both accurate diagnosis and treatment monitoring in this population. An extensive review of existing assessment techniques confirms that: (a) current techniques for the evaluation of emotional disorders in cognitively normal individuals are inappropriate for most children with developmental disabilities; and (b) current instruments designed for the assessment of developmentally disabled children pay inadequate attention to affective symptoms. In this paper, the preliminary version of a new instrument, the "Emotional Disorders Rating Scale for Developmental Disabilities" (EDRS-DD), designed to evaluate mood and affect in children and adolescents with developmental disabilities, is presented. A pilot study indicates that interrater agreement is good.

Affective Symptoms↗
PubMed1987

Use of the alternating treatments design as a strategy for empirically determining language training approaches with mentally retarded children.

The present study was conducted as a practical demonstration of the potential utility of the alternating treatments design (ATD) in determining the most efficacious language training approach with mentally retarded children. Two subjects were chosen who used single words to communicate but who did not combine words to form sentences. Two sentence triads consisting of four words each and rated as equivalent in difficulty were trained. Each triad had one sentence trained using oral speech methods, a second trained using total communication methods, and a third sentence trained using a "modified" total communication approach. Each training procedure involved chaining sentence parts, reinforcement, and prompting. Oral methods involved presenting vocal stimuli and requiring vocal responses. Total communication methods involved presenting vocal and signed stimuli and requiring vocal and signed responses. The "modified" total communication approach also involved presenting vocal and signed stimuli, but required only vocal responses. For the initial sentence triad with each child, an alternating treatments design was used to determine the relative efficacy of the three language training methods. This approach was repeated with a second sentence triad for each child using a multiprobe technique within a multiple baseline design. Results were consistent within each subject but differed across subjects, with one child benefitting most from total communication methods and the other benefitting most from oral speech methods. Results were discussed in terms of the utility of the alternating treatments design as a potentially useful aid to traditional decision-making in the selection of language training strategies commonly employed with mentally retarded children.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Behavioral treatment of chronic aerophagia.

Effects of various behavioral interventions on stereotyped aerophagic responding by a profoundly mentally retarded, 5-year-old girl were assessed. Aerophagic responding was defined as air swallowing with extreme stomach protrusion, followed by breath-holding. Observations of air swallowing, as well as physiologic measurements related to heart rate and respiratory patterns, were recorded across both baseline and treatment phases of the study. Multiple behavioral interventions were assessed within a laboratory setting using an alternating treatment design format, with the most effective treatment systematically extended to additional settings. Results indicated that a behavior modification treatment package was effective in suppressing the high frequency of this rare stereotyped act to near-zero rates.

Aerophagy↗
PubMed1984

An alternating treatments comparison of oral and total communication training with minimally verbal retarded children.

This study was a comparison of the effects of oral speech with total communication (speech plus sign language) training on the ability of mentally retarded children to repeat 4-word sentences. Three children were chosen who used single words to communicate but who did not combine words into complete sentences. Three sentence pairs were trained, with each pair having one sentence trained using oral methods and an equivalent one trained using the total communication approach. Both training procedures involved chaining sentence parts, reinforcement, and prompting. Oral methods involved presenting vocal stimuli and requiring vocal responses whereas total communication methods involved presenting vocal and signed stimuli and requiring vocal and signed responses. For the initial sentence pair with each child, an alternating treatments design was used to determine the relative efficacy of the two language training approaches. This was repeated with a second and third sentence pair using a multiprobe technique within a multiple baseline design. Results pointed to the superiority of the total communication approach in facilitating sentence repetition. Possible explanations of these results are offered and the utility of the alternating treatments experimental design is discussed.

Child↗
PubMed1983

Treatment of compulsive rituals with visual screening: a case study with long-term follow-up.

The present study reports on the use of visual screening, a mildly aversive response suppression procedure, as a treatment for reducing compulsive behaviors in a four and one-half year-old developmentally disabled boy. Two distinct patterns of compulsive responding were observed: repetitive (stereotyped) shoe-related behaviors and a ritualistic shoe-related act. The effect of visual screening on repetitive shoe-related responses was initially evaluated in a laboratory setting under A-B-A-B-B1 experimental conditions and systematically extended to the classroom setting in multiple baseline fashion. Visual screening was also contingently applied as treatment for the shoe-related ritual, with the effects analyzed using a similar multiple baseline format across hospital residential unit and natural home settings. Results of the study indicated that visual screening was an effective treatment for suppressing both forms of the subject's compulsive responding and that it was an easily learned and administered procedure from both staff and parent perspectives. Follow-up data across 12 months were obtained and indicated that the effect of treatment was exceptionally durable.

Aversive Therapy↗
PubMed1982

Visual screening: an alternative method for reducing stereotypic behaviors.

Visual screening, a mildly aversive response suppression procedure, was evaluated across two studies for its effectiveness in reducing topographically similar and dissimilar stereotypic behaviors of four developmentally disabled children. In the first study, a multiple baseline design across subjects and behaviors was used to assess the effectiveness of the procedure as a treatment for reducing the visual and auditory self-stimulatory responses of two 9-yr-old mentally retarded and behaviorally disturbed children. A multiple baseline design across subjects was used in the second study to evaluate the effectiveness of visual screening as a treatment for reducing stereotypic fabric pulling and self-mutilative ear bending, respectively, of two 13-yr-old mentally retarded, autisticlike adolescents. Long-term follow-up data for both studies were reported. The results suggested that visual screening was an easily administered, effective, and exceptionally durable treatment procedure for controlling a variety of stereotypic behaviors commonly associated with the developmentally disabled.

Adolescent↗