Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities

The purpose of this article is to explain and support the policy statement on consent recently approved by the Board of Directors of CEC-MRDD. The position statement posits that adults with mental retardation and developmental disabilities have the right to consent to programs and/or procedures that impact their daily lives including living arrangements, employment, etc. Further, the article offers ethical and practical suggestions for dealing with the issue of consent for adults with mental and developmental disabilities and invites communication between others interested in research and policy concerning the issue.

The social networks, social supports, family environment and adjustment of 36 fifth and sixth grade preadolescents, 15 with mild mental retardation, and 21 without mental retardation were examined. Two interviews with the preadolescents and their families, using a battery of questionnaires, were conducted in the home. Results showed no group differences in the size of preadolescents' social networks. In terms of who they turn to for social support, preadolescents with mild mental retardation were more likely to turn to people in the home and adults outside the home for companionship, while preadolescents without mental retardation turned to peers. Further, the more negative the family environment, the more preadolescents turned to adults outside the home for emotional and problem solving support. Lastly, preadolescents who received greater emotional and problem solving support from people in the home, experienced fewer adjustment problems. The importance of a positive family environment for providing needed emotional support and the implications of the lack of peer companionship for preadolescents with mild mental retardation, as they enter adolescence, is discussed.

A heterogeneous group of students were taught math facts during small group time in the regular education classroom. In addition to the systematic instruction of math facts, unrelated instructive feedback (i.e., sight words) was presented within the consequent event (i.e., after students responded to the math problem). A same task—different stimuli format was used. Each student had the same task of calculating math facts but each student had different stimuli (i.e., each student learned different math facts). In addition, each student had different sight words included in the consequent event (i.e., unrelated stimuli). A multiple probe design was used. The data showed that (a) all students learned their targeted stimuli (i.e., math facts), (b) all students learned some of their unrelated stimuli (i.e., sight words), and (c) observational learning occurred when all students learned some of their peers' targeted stimuli (i.e., math facts) as well as their peers' unrelated stimuli (i.e., sight words). Data also indicated that some of the related and unrelated stimuli generalized to the natural environment. Discussion focuses on the logical efficiency of these types of group instructional arrangements that teach both related and unrelated information together in classrooms where collaborative services are provided.

This study investigated the effectiveness of teacher-implemented language intervention within play activities. Specifically, naturalistic language intervention procedures (i.e., mand-model, incidental teaching) were used to increase the use of spontaneous language targets in 4 elementary students with moderate disabilities. While the students showed an increase in the number of spontaneous targets they used during the intervention condition, they demonstrated minimal maintenance and generalization following intervention. Implications for future research are discussed.

This study compared the effects of two instructional trial scheduling formats (massed practice only vs. combined massed practice and distributed practice) on the acquisition, transfer, and generalization of explicitly prompted requests. A general case instructional analysis and naturalistic teaching strategies were used by classroom staff to teach 2 sets of single word requests to 5 children with severe disabilities (CA = 4-8). A within subjects adapted alternated treatments design (AADT) (Holcombe, Wolery, & Gast, 1994) with interspersed transfer and stimulus generalization probes was employed to collect and analyze child performance data. Results indicated that (a) the general case / naturalistic teaching approach was effective for all children, and (b) there were only minimal and / or child-specific differences in the relative effectiveness of the two trial scheduling formats.

Many students identified as trainable mentally retarded are moving to less restrictive placements. These moves may provide increased opportunities to interact with peers without disabilities and regular educators. The specific aim of the study was to characterize the interactions of students with moderate and severe mental retardation with their peers and instructors during physical education activities in regular elementary school settings and to examine the relationship between the nature of physical education activities and interaction patterns using direct observational methodology. Ten subjects with moderate to severe mental retardation were observed during regular physical education classes. Behavioral data and activity conditions were recorded using an IBM-compatible laptop computer. This study was a first step toward identifying social and environmental variables associated with successful participation of students with mental retardation in regular physical education settings.

One assessment instrument that was developed to evaluate the motivational factors that may instigate or maintain challenging behaviors in persons with developmental disabilities is the Motivation Assessment Scale (MAS) (Durand & Crimmins, 1992). Although the MAS is increasingly being used in applied settings, questions remain concerning its reliability and validity (Crawford, Brockel, Schauss, & Miltenberger, 1992). The purpose of this research study was to further assess the intra-rater and inter-rater agreement of the MAS and expand the results of previous research by evaluating this across additional time and administrations. A total of 20 persons with mental retardation and 19 raters participated in the study. The results indicated variable moderate-low intra-rater and inter-rater reliability. Conclusions and the need for future research are discussed.

Individuals with severe disabilities have historically been excluded from community-based employment. As a result, sheltered placements are often a function of our inability as professionals to develop services that support workers when faced with conditions that preclude full participation due to physical and/or social barriers. The purpose of this paper is to describe a model in which barriers were modified and supports developed to enable persons with the multiple and severe disabilities to gain competitive employment. In this model, a type of Paid Co-worker Support, a job was obtained for two individuals with severe and multiple disabilities, which involved having; (a) a skilled and experienced job coach who set up the environment to facilitate the fullest participation possible and train the workers to complete all job tasks, and (b) the same job coach train a paid co-worker to provide on-going support to maintain each worker's production, accuracy, and employer satisfaction ratings. Results of this demonstration indicated that with the support of a paid co-worker, persons with severe and multiple disabilities successfully maintained employment. Implications for future development of similar models for persons with severe and multiple disabilities are discussed.