Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities

This paper reports on the social relationships and leisure activities of a representative national sample of 336 persons with mental retardation living in 181 small (6 or fewer total residents) foster homes, small group homes, and small group homes with Intermediate Care Facilities for the Mentally Retarded (ICF-MR). Data were gathered on a wide range of indicators of the social and leisure recreational integration, such as relationships with neighbors, family members, and others; and leisure activities. The study found people were integrated in the community and had typical life experiences. However, the depth and breadth of their life styles may be less than might be expected or desired.

This study compared the effects of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) and a more traditional paper-and-pencil approach in promoting automatization of basic skills in addition and subtraction. Using a trials-to-criterion approach, the accuracy and response time of nonhandicapped students and students who are mildly mentally handicapped were compared. No difference between the two groups or the two instructional media were found in accuracy; in response time, however, students in the CAI condition needed fewer trials than those in the paper-and-pencil condition to reach criterion in both addition and subtraction. Further analyses of data from the addition study revealed that this difference was present only for the nonhandicapped group. Also, the students with mild mental handicaps needed more trials to reach criterion in the CAI condition in the addition study, and in both media in the subtraction study. Results suggest that CAI was more effective in promoting automaticity and that students with mild mental handicaps require a greater degree of practice than their nonhandicapped counterparts in becoming automatic in their performance of basic mathematics skills.

The basic premise of this paper is that a more business-like approach to job development, one that acknowledges the importance of meeting employer needs, is essential for growth in supported employment opportunities. Seven job development elements that incorporate sales and business practices are presented and illustrated. These elements are drawn from five years of job-development experience with large and small businesses, together with information from the professional literature. Future job development re-search needs also are suggested.

A constant time delay procedure was used to teach four adolescents with moderate mental retardation to select lower priced grocery items using an adaptive number line. Subjects learned to correctly compare seven different pairs of two and three digit prices and select the lower priced item. Multiple exemplars and general case programming were used to enhance skill generalization. Training was evaluated with a multi-ple probe design across subjects. Results indicate that all students reached criterion on the skill, maintained the skill with at least 90% accuracy up to 14-weeks after training, and generalized the skill from their classroom to a community grocery store with at least 97% correct responding. Students also improved their ability to compare and select the lower priced item when the comparison involved two prices with a different number of digits in each price.

We investigated the effects of peer-delivered self-instructional training on the work performance of three students with moderate to severe disabilities. Two students with mild mental retardation were trained to teach the participants two task-specific self-instructions and an interactive statement to a customer while they prepared sack lunches. Results indicated that two of the three participants learned to make sack lunches in the correct sequence and generalized their responding across novel customers. For the third participant, increases in performance with generalized responding across novel customers occurred only after picture cues were added to a self-instructional training package directed by a non-peer trainer. Conditional probabilities were calculated to determine the correspondence between the self-instructions and the task responses. The implications of the results for employment training are discussed.

This report describes a self-management skills intervention that was initiated at school, and later continued in the home environment with different tasks. The intervention involved four high school students with moderate to severe mental retardation and was analyzed using a multiple-baseline protocol. The students were taught to use picture schedules to initiate a series of behavioral tasks upon arriving at school each morning. When each student mastered the picture schedule at school, s / he was taught to use a picture schedule to do a series of chores immediately upon arriving home from school each day. After the training, all the subjects successfully used the schedules at school and at home, and the results held until the start of summer vacation. Immediately after summer vacation and at a follow-up one month later, the subjects were 100% successful using the picture schedules at school and home.

Programming for students with mental retardation is based on assessment data collected to deter-mine individual strengths and weaknesses. While norm-referenced assessment methods have been used extensively in the past for this purpose, more and more schools are using criterion-referenced, curriculum-based assessment models. Although these approaches represent a major step forward in determining appro-priate instructional needs, they may not take into consideration the future goals and objectives of individual students. Therefore, the curriculum implemented for individual students may not be relevant to their future needs. The proposed future based assessment/intervention model takes into consideration students’ abilities as well as their individual long range goals and objectives. Armed with this information, professionals can develop intervention plans that realistically prepare students for their futures.

The purpose of this study was to compare the performance of two adults with different levels of mental retardation in a community employment site. The study's main purpose was to provide a direct replication across participants on a supported employment restroom cleaning program to assess generalization of training strategies. Dependent variables were the percent of steps performed independently on community training task, and the number of prompts needed to teach the targeted behavior. Further, the independent variable was the severity of disability or the level of retardation of the participants.

Results indicated that both participants learned to perform the tasks equally well. The person with moderate mental retardation learned the tasks in fewer session (15). The person with severe mental retardation learned the tasks in a greater number of sessions (21). Discussion concentrated on the implementation issues of providing supported employment to persons who have varying degrees of impairments.

A curriculum innovation was attempted in special education classrooms serving 6- to 9-yr-old children who were mildly mentally retarded. Children in the control group followed individualized programs of instruction, with emphasis on verbal and number concepts. For children in the experimental group, teachers substituted lessons on Piagetian operations with large sets of manipulatives for varying parts of these individualized programs of studies. Children in both groups made significant gains on most measures over the course of a year. The children receiving instruction on the Piagetian operations usually gained more, and the differences in amount of change from pretest to posttest were statistically significant for a seriation test and the Peabody Individual Achievement Test. Both groups gained in an absolute sense, and the PIAT percentile measure showed that the children receiving the experimental instruction nearly held their own when compared to children with no handicapping condition. The other children lost four percentile points, because their absolute gain did not match their gain in age. These results are evidence that investment of classroom time in instruction in the basic cognitive operations of classification and seriation via sets of widely varying manipulatives is relatively profitable.