Ecological Assessment of Disabling Stereotyped Behavior in a Workday Training Program

Abstract

An ecological study was made of persistent repetitious movements by 12 adults in a horticultural day work program. A naturalistic video-based notation was developed and used to type these responses as small and large scale movements or sudden disruptions of ongoing activities. As measured by overall program outcome, fewer dysfunctional patterns of all types occurred during skill components in which staff were actively teaching than during nonskill or open components in which the trainee was isolated or resting. Only people with rapid fine-grained rhythms also had large scale ritualistic patterns, but no such relationship appeared for disruptive behavior. Results argued for teaching skills in terms of coordinated response ensembles, with due regard for the wealth of biological information about neural rhythm generators whose elaborate patterned outputs can be exaggerated by brain injury or medications.

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