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Abstract

Paraprofessional staff working in group homes, institutions, day care centers, and sheltered workshops for people with mental retardation participated in in-service training on adult education, in which basic teaching skills were trained. The majority of the trainees wrote and implemented individual teaching programs for their clients. The results of the teaching were followed by measuring the adaptive behavior of the clients with the AAMD Adaptive Behavior Scale before the teaching began, and again, two years after. The results indicated positive gains in adaptive behavior among those clients who received teaching (n = 56). A small comparison group (n = 14) that did not receive teaching, showed no gains. In some aspects there was even deterioration.

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Paraprofessional Staff Teaching Adults with Mental Retardation

Abstract

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