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Naturalistic observations of classrooms serving severely handicapped persons: establishing evaluative norms.

A naturalistic, observational analysis was conducted of 43 self-contained classrooms serving severely handicapped students. The primary focus of the observations was on levels of on-task student performance and student involvement in functional educational tasks. Results indicated that during designated instructional periods, slightly less than half of all student time was spent on-task. When students were on-task, almost two-thirds of their time involved nonfunctional instructional tasks. Results are discussed in terms of establishing norms for evaluating and improving educational services for the severely handicapped. Additionally, future research directions are noted, with a particular emphasis on investigating means of assisting educators in providing more useful teaching tasks for severely handicapped students.

Activities of Daily Living↗

Research in mental retardation: underreporting of medication information.

Estimates of psychoactive drug use among persons residing in community and institutional settings suggest high prevalence rates. Psychoactive drug use has been associated with impairments in adaptive functioning. As a result, drug-induced effects may represent potential confounds that need to be considered when evaluating treatment outcomes. Consequently, information about drug regimens should be reported in empirical investigations. In this investigation, a review of six applied research and special education journals over an 11-year period was conducted to determine the extent to which information about drug regimens of participants was provided. It was determined that only slightly more than 3% of the articles reported information about subject medication usage and only 1.5% reported information relating to the use of medications as independent variables. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for recommending that providing information about drug regimens should become standard practice when describing subjects.

Child↗

Comment on Starin and Fuqua's (1987) review of research on rumination and vomiting.

Starin and Fuqua seriously misread a critical study cited in their recent review in failing to characterize it as an experimental analysis of four treatment procedures, and therefore inappropriately criticized it for several shortcomings. This misreading and a tendency to equate vomiting with and without rumination compromise their conclusions regarding treatment choice. At the present time, the data base favors selection of several aversive procedures and the nonaversive satiation procedure over others, but the number of studies on nonaversive operant treatment procedures remains remarkably limited.

Behavior Therapy↗

A comparison of forward and concurrent chaining strategies in teaching laundromat skills to students with severe handicaps.

This study compared the relative efficiency of forward and concurrent chaining strategies in teaching the use of a commercial washing machine and laundry soap dispenser to four high school students with severe handicaps. Acquisition and maintenance of the laundromat skills were assessed through a multielement, alternating treatment within subject design. Results indicated that the concurrent chaining strategy was more efficient than forward chaining in facilitating acquisition of the activities. Four week and eight week follow-up probes indicated that concurrent chaining resulted in better maintenance of the activities. The implications of these results for teaching community activities and future research in building complex chains are discussed.

Adolescent↗

Applied behavior analysis: its impact on the treatment of mentally retarded emotionally disturbed people.

Laboratory research on behavior analysis proved to be useful in establishing principles of learning with many relevant applications for people. Early efforts in the applied behavior analysis area proved to be particularly successful with mentally retarded persons. Self-help skills received much of the earliest attention, but another area that became quite fruitful for study was dual diagnosis--mental health problems of mentally retarded individuals. This paper reviews some of the early works of Skinner and his colleagues and the implications of this work on the rapidly developing subdiscipline of dual diagnosis. Current status and future trends are discussed.

Affective Symptoms↗

Noncompliant behavior of people with mental retardation.

Literature pertaining to noncompliant behavior of people with mental retardation was reviewed. Noncompliant behavior was considered in terms of antecedents (characteristics of instructions), behaviors (characteristics of tasks being refused), and consequences (environmental results of noncompliance). Literature pertaining to nondisabled "oppositional" children was incorporated along with literature pertaining to persons with mental retardation. Research involving antecedent conditions suggested that noncompliance is more likely when instructions are vague and interrupted with other instructions. It also suggested that a series of high probability requests could enhance compliance to a subsequent low probability request. Research into behavior variables suggested that noncompliance is more likely when task demands are too difficult. Research into consequent conditions indicates that either positive or negative reinforcement may maintain noncompliant behavior. Treatment studies suggested that oppositional children respond poorly to verbal reward alone and somewhat better to tangible rewards and to programs utilizing timeout. By contrast, noncompliance by people with mental retardation appears to respond well to programs utilizing combinations of social and tangible rewards, but results also suggest that results of timeout programs are mixed. Implications for treatment were discussed along with suggestions for future research.

Behavior Therapy↗

Spoken and signed naming of foods after receptive exclusion training in severe retardation.

Two low-functioning mentally retarded subjects learned to name food items after receptive exclusion training, conducted as follows: The subjects first learned to select a small number of foods in a two-choice matching-to-sample task. For one subject, the samples were dictated names; for the other, the samples were manual signs. They also learned to name these "known" foods, either orally or by signing. On exclusion trials, a known food was displayed with a new food whose corresponding name or sign had not yet been learned, and a novel sample (spoken or signed), corresponding to the new food, was presented. The subjects typically selected the new food immediately, apparently by "excluding" the food related to the known sample. If a known sample was presented, however, the subjects continued to select the known food correctly. Periodically during exclusion training with a number of new foods, the subjects were tested for production of food names or signs. With few exceptions, the subjects produced the food names without direct training, often after only a few receptive exclusion trials. The results suggest strategies for teaching simple receptive and expressive relations to severely mentally retarded individuals.

Adolescent↗

Behaviour problems in severely mentally handicapped children.

A population study was undertaken in two health districts of children with severe mental handicap. Prevalence figures for behaviour problems are presented. A stratified random sample of 200 families was drawn from the population. Detailed structured interviews were carried out with the children's parents. The children were divided into two groups, comprising those with behaviour problems and those with no problems. There was a significant association between behaviour disorder and incontinence, lack of self-help skills, poor reading, writing and counting skills, and poor communication skills. Environmental correlates were few. There were no differences between groups in family size, birth order, age of parents, marital discord, social class or income. However, behaviour problems were more common in one-parent families. An association was found between maternal stress and problem behaviour. The possible mechanisms underlying this association are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Developmental psychology and mental retardation. Integrating scientific principles with treatment practices.

The current debates about "best practices" within mental retardation reflect key unresolved issues about the nature of mental retardation and the goals of treatment programs. The central axiom proposed is that better integration of basic principles about human development with treatment practices for children will yield substantial benefits to individuals and society. To illustrate the format for this proposed integration, three principles have been abstracted from scientific inquiry in human development: (a) targeted environmental prevention, (b) metacognitive conveyance, and (c) ecological dominion. A contextual analysis, using special education as an example of a major treatment setting, indicates that application of these developmental principles is likely to reduce the prevalence of mild retardation (as currently defined), to minimize social and behavioral problems, and to foster improved levels of environmental mastery (adaptive success) for many children with low IQs and cognitive deficiencies. Consistent with these developmental principles, the current construct of mental retardation is judged inadequate, and an alternative diagnostic strategy is proposed. This strategy is based on repeated developmental profiling of a child and his or her biosocial environmental history.

Child↗

Difficulty in writing Japanese semantic characters in a 9-year-old boy with Williams syndrome.

A 9-year-old boy diagnosed as having Williams syndrome was evaluated using psychological test batteries in order to clarify his ability in language and visual cognition. The subject had difficulty in writing some of the Japanese semantic characters (called Kanji) which he could otherwise read and understand. Although he could write the small components of which the Kanji characters were composed, he could not locate these correctly. This phenomenon is considered to be very similar to the difficulty in copying a figure observed clinically. The Kaufmann Assessment Batteries for Children clearly revealed that the boy had difficulty with the sub-test of spatial memory compared to his average score for simultaneous processing. This result is considered to be closely related to the difficulty in copying figures or writing Kanji characters. On the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities, the present authors found that the subject's vocabulary was relatively good, although semantic and pragmatic problems remained. Clarifying the strong and weak points of the abilities of such patients will help to determine the most appropriate mode of education for them.

Apraxia, Ideomotor↗

Reliability in the use of the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale for educable mentally retarded adolescents.

The Tennessee Self Concept Scale was administered in a 10-week test-retest situation to 39 educable mentally retarded adolescents. Low to moderate reliability coefficients indicated the need for more extensive normative information and for caution in evaluation of test scores in the study of EMR adolescents' self-concept. The obtained coefficients suggest the possibility that the self-concept of individual EMR adolescents is a more variable psychological characteristic than has been previously indicated in the research literature and that this variability needs to be more carefully assessed.

Adolescent↗