The paper describes a domestic training environment created through a joint agreement among 10 rural public school districts to teach severely handicapped students domestic skills in a natural and future community environment. Skills checklists and schedules are discussed along with the logisitics and costs of providing the training environment.…

This article presents a matrix model to train individuals with severe handicaps to use language skills in spontaneous language situations. The model takes into account listener preparatory behaviors and contextual variables. The model suggests procedures for efficient training for generalization. (DB)

Simple discriminations are involved in many functional skills; additionally, they are components of conditional discriminations (identity and arbitrary matching-to-sample), which are involved in a wide array of other important performances. Many individuals with severe disabilities have difficulty acquiring simple discriminations with standard…

The paper presents a seven-step model that job coaches may use to teach self-management to employees with severe disabilities in supported employment settings. Steps include: identifying the problem, establishing a range of acceptable behavior, selecting self-management procedures, training self-management skills by withdrawing external…

The paper describes a strategic models approach to programing for severely handicapped students which incorporates behavioral, developmental, adaptive remedial, and functional teaching approaches. The role of the staff member and assessment and intervention strategies within each approach are presented. (Author/DB)

A child psychiatric consultant describes the category of pervasive developmental disorders of children, characterized by grossly deviant patterns of growth and maturation in cognitive, psychological, biological, and social development (not including disorders resulting from demonstrable brain damage). Theories of causation are reviewed and…

The progress of a 4-year-old child with Rett Syndrome (a developmental disability resulting in severe mental and physical deficits in female children) in learning simple environmental control over an 18-month-period is described. A systematic program providing for contingency control of toys and music via switches was provided in the child's…

The primary goal of this project was to increase schools' resources and staff skills in providing function-based behavior support to individual students with chronic problem behaviors. Over the course of a 3-year period, 10 school teams received training in and on-site consultation on functional behavioral assessment (FBA) and behavior support…

A multiple-probe design demonstrated the effectiveness of a match to sample paradigm using tactile recipe cards, a positional tray, and systematic prompting in teaching a severely handicapped deaf-blind retarded woman the independent preparation of three breakfast foods. (Author/DB)

This paper discusses a German program that provides a network of sheltered workshops for those unable to work under competitive conditions. Specifically described is the program at Detmold, Westphalia, which uses job analysis and detailed appraisal of workers' social and psychological characteristics in its training program. (Author/DB)

The paper proposes a conceptual framework with which to view employability of persons with severe disabilities. The central features of autonomy of adaptability in applied research programs in competitive employment are examined. Strategies to promote autonomy of performance are identified: self-control techniques, withdrawal of treatment…

The research brief on community-based instruction for individuals with severe disabilities is based on a manual for practitioners titled "Designing Community-Based Instructional Programming" developed at the University of Utah. The manual stresses the importance of preparing students for community participation by providing instruction in the…

The federally funded project is intended to aid inservice training specific to the skills and needs of severely handicapped children and youth. Project goals include: development, implementation, and evaluation of training procedures and materials to change the attitude and knowledge of persons responsible for the education of learners with severe…

The Harpersbury Hospital School in Hertfordshire, England, developed a curriculum of "mothering," or intensive, structured interaction teaching, to promote development of language, cognition, and sociability in pupils with severe and complex learning difficulties. The process approach is based on the critical learning that infants…

This article explains how a 12-year-old boy with profound mental retardation and autistic behaviors, living in a group home, was taught to follow number- and color-coded directions so that he could independently cook his own meals in a microwave oven. The article covers materials used, the skills taught, adaptations for classroom use, and safety…