The effectiveness of a training procedure designed to teach developmentally disabled children to play by themselves was examined. In addition, the influence of the frequency of probing was investigated. Baseline data showed low levels of self-amusement. The generalization training procedure produced moderate increases in self-amusement when probes were conducted frequently. The same treatment procedure produced higher levels of self-amusement when probes were conducted intermittantly. Some strategies for more successfully programming self-amusement are suggested.

This investigation was concerned with determining the effectiveness of filial therapy as a method of intervention for families of children with pervasive developmental disorders.

An acquisition criterion, more commonly known as “mastery criterion” is an instructor-established standard of performance that may signal the acquisition of a novel skill or the conclusion of a phase of intervention. When teaching new behaviors, researchers and practitioners in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) apply some type of criterion for the learner to achieve. The purpose of the following studies was to evaluate the effects of acquisition criteria on skill acquisition in addition to other components of mastery such as response maintenance and stimulus generalization. In Experiment I (Wong et al., 2021), I conducted a systematic comparison of two applications of acquisition criteria. I selected four participants to teach 40 novel sight words using learn unit instruction. The participants were between the ages of 5 and 7 years old and diagnosed with developmental disabilities. I equated the target operants and quasi-randomly assigned 20 sight words in one acquisition criterion condition and 20 sight words in another acquisition criterion condition. In one condition, Set Analysis (SA), the acquisition criterion was applied to a set of four operants. The other condition, Operant Analysis (OA), applied acquisition criterion to individual operants. The level of accuracy and the replication of the accuracy remained the same across conditions, and more specifically, a 100% accuracy across one replication session was utilized under OA and SA. The results of skill acquisition showed that all four participants learned a greater number of sight words under the OA condition compared to the SA condition within the same time frame. Response maintenance results suggested that SA produced more durable responses for three out of four participants. In Experiment II, I extended the findings of Experiment I by addressing some limitations and systematically replicating the procedures. I increased the number of replications of the acquisition criterion from 1 replication to two replications. I selected four new participants and taught them sight words under the OA application of acquisition criterion and the SA application of acquisition criterion. Similar to the findings of Experiment 1, the skill acquisition results showed all participants learned a greater number of operants under OA compared to SA. The response maintenance results showed that all four participants responded with 100% accuracy to a similar or higher percentage of operants under the OA condition compared to the SA condition, suggesting that the added replication to the acquisition criterion may have improved the durability of responses during four-week follow-up sessions. The findings of both Experiment I and Experiment II contributed to the small but growing body of literature demonstrating the parametric effects of acquisition criteria. However, small sample sizes in the existing acquisition criteria research limit the external validity of the findings. Thus, I conducted a descriptive analysis of every skill acquisition article published in 2017 to 2019 in three peer-reviewed behavioral journals, in order to address this limitation. I reported the general characteristics of over 200 articles targeting skill acquisition. Additionally, our analysis targeted the effects of acquisition-criterion levels and frequency of replications on response maintenance results and generalization results. Ultimately, the results provide evidence that acquisition criteria play an important role in the mastery of novel behaviors, which have practical implications for ABA clinicians and researchers.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In this study, I explore the meaning of successful aging among older adults with long-term disabilities. The study is a review of scholarly literature on the subject of successful aging, with a specific focus on older adults with long-term disabilities. The objective is to shed light on the issue by critically examining what research exists and what research is still needed. The purpose of this study was to investigate the following question: What does it mean for an older adult with long-term disability to age successfully? Seven older adults with sensory impairment, either deaf, hearing impaired, blind, visually impaired or a combination of these, were interviewed using qualitative phenomenological research methods. Findings include themes of aging as inevitable, frequent activity, social and family interaction as essential, sense of worth, acceptance of disability, coping and resilience as well as advice to others.

Conversational skills training was administered to two developmentally delayed male residents of a board and care home to increase each subject's use of encouraging comments and on-topic questions during conversations with another resident. The effects of the skills training package of instructions, behavior rehearsal, modeling, and feedback were assessed in a multiple-baseline design across the behaviors of encouraging comments and on-topic questions. Training was successful in that each subject increased his use of both target conversational behaviors above criterion level. The two subjects who received training were also assessed to see if the conversational behavior generalized to a third subject. This subject was also an adult, developmentally delayed male resident of the home. The two target behaviors generalized to the third subject during a single follow-up observation session. In addition, follow-up assessments for the two trained subjects indicated that each subject's increased use of encouraging comments and on-topic questions in conversation persisted over a one week period. The conversational skills training also resulted in an improvement in their social speech. Four judges, blind with respect to training conditions and subjects, subjectively rated the conversational behavior of each of the subjects on a bi-polar (1 = poor, 10 = excellent) rating scale while listening to pre-training and post-training tapes. All four judges rated each of the trained subjects as a better conversationalist after training.

No description available.

Normalization of persons with mental retardation has been a national goal for the past twenty-five years, and deinstitutionalization is the driving force to the attainment of this goal. Small group homes, or community based facilities, are viewed as a viable alternative to institutionalization. The sponsors of group homes have encountered neighborhood opposition to such an extent that specialized approaches for neighborhood entry have been developed. However, the efficacy of these entry approaches has received little empirical attention. The purpose of this study was to investigate entry approaches employed by sponsors of group homes in their attempts to locate in local communities. Structured personal interviews were conducted with sponsoring agency officials, managers of the group homes, area housing authorities, and persons residing in neighborhoods where group homes for persons with mental retardation were located during the months of May, June, and July, 1985. Individual case studies regarding seven group homes established in a large county in the state of North Carolina have been presented. Grouped data have also been reported in the attempt to investigate the efficacy of entry approaches the literature is currently advocating. / Ed. D.

Analysis of staff knowledge of client rights in West Virginia institutions for the developmentally disabled was undertaken in this study. Even with the identification of guaranteed rights for institutionalized individuals through federal and state legislation, standards, policies, and judicial decisions, whose findings have shown that violation of client rights continues to occur in most institutions. A review of the literature indicated that one possible cause for the continuation of rights violations may be the staff limited understanding of client rights. The literature also has revealed few studies have attempted an investigation in this area. This study involved 644 full-time staff who were representative of one of six different job categories. The staff were employed in one of three West Virginia institutions for the developmentally disabled. It was hypothesized that if differences in staff knowledge of client rights were identified, this information could be used to direct staff training and policy-making decisions and perhaps minimize the continuous violations of client rights. That significant differences in knowledge of client rights did exist when different job categories of staff were compared within each institution as well as across institutions. It was found that significant relationships in knowledge of client rights exist between staff with different job longevity rates, but the correlation was too low to be considered a reliable predictor of limited value. No significant differences in staff knowledge of client rights were found between the three institutions. The implication of these research findings and the future need for research in this area are discussed. / Ed. D.

In this qualitative study the researcher explores the experiences of various caregivers at a day care centre for developmentally challenged children. This study also attempts to draw a distinction between the experiences of formal and informal caregivers’ experiences. The study is underpinned by two assumptions: 1) that in order to obtain a rich understanding of a phenomenon, the views and voices of a variety of individuals need to be considered and 2) that cultural values and practices play a significant role in the way individuals experience a certain phenomenon. The experiences of both formal and informal caregivers are documented using thematic analysis. An analysis of the participants’ global themes revealed that “education/learning/skills development” and “communication barriers” were common themes among both participant groups. Each participant group also expressed unique experiences such as “being a parent”, “becoming a foster parent” and “being useless as a professional-in-training”. Focal areas for further research are highlighted. / Clinical Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

Thesis (doctoral)--Gothenburg University, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references.