Background:While disparities in the health status for persons ageing with intellectual and developmental disabilities have been well documented, interventions that address individual risks in physical, emotional, social and environmental health among this population are lacking. This pilot study evaluated the feasibility of two in-home…

In order to explain the cognitive and cerebral mechanisms responsible for the visuospatial peak in autism, and to document its specificity to this condition, a group of eight high-functioning individuals with autism and a visuospatial peak (HFA-P) performed a modified block-design task (BDT; subtest from Wechsler scales) at various levels of…

The Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities test (ABLA) is a useful tool for choosing appropriate training tasks for persons with developmental disabilities. This test assesses the ease or difficulty with which persons are able to learn six hierarchically positioned discrimination tasks. A visual-visual nonidentity matching prototype task was…

We evaluated the influence of child location on the occurrence of self-injurious behavior (SIB) during functional analyses conducted in home settings. An initial functional analysis conducted with 2 children who had developmental disabilities showed undifferentiated patterns of SIB. Analyses of behavior during free play suggested that the child's…

Two variations of a vocal paired-stimulus preference assessment were evaluated to determine whether the verbal reports of preference, given by individuals with developmental disabilities when no access to the activity was given, matched their verbal reports when access to the activity was given contingent on their choice. The results indicated…

For young adults with developmental disabilities, postsecondary experiences on a university campus with same-age peers can provide opportunities for learning and social integration. Through the collaborative support of university instructors, a preservice teacher, and her mother, a young woman with Down syndrome was successfully included in a…

Curriculum modification strategies, particularly curriculum adaptations and augmentations, have been identified as important to enable learners with disabilities to achieve access to and progress in the general curriculum. There is, however, relatively little research on the effect of these strategies with students with intellectual and…

The perspective of children with developmental disabilities regarding what is important is not fully understood due to limited means by which accurate data are collected. Many researchers rely upon teachers, parents, and siblings to provide information regarding the lives of children with developmental disabilities. This study differs from most…

This article extracts principles from two Surgeon General reports, "Closing the Gap: A National Blueprint to Improve the Health of Persons with Mental Retardation" (2002) and "Call to Action to Improve the Health and Wellness of Persons with Disabilities" (2005), and combines them with the Objectives from "Chapter 6 of Healthy People 2010" to…

Public financial support for intellectual disability in the United States grew from 2.3 billion in 1955 to 82.6 billion in 2004, and the federal government emerged during this period as the principal provider of such support. Notwithstanding this unprecedented growth in financial support, many inequities persist today in the distribution of…

Difficulties in finding, keeping, and ensuring the competence of the direct support workforce in community developmental disability services has long been a challenge for individuals, families, providers, and policy makers. Direct support staff recruitment, retention, and competence are widely reported as one of the most significant barriers to…

We are delighted to welcome you to the International Psychological Applications Conference and Trends 2014, taking place in Porto, Portugal, from 4 to 6 of April. Psychology, in our time, offers a large range of scientific fields where it can be applied. The goal of understanding individuals and groups (mental functions and behavioral…

The amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) in 2004 reiterate the significance of producing real postsecondary education, employment, and independent living outcomes. However, current employment data continue to show widespread unemployment and very limited access to inclusive community environments and…

We examined the peer interactions and academic engagement of 23 middle and high school students with developmental disabilities within inclusive academic and elective classrooms. The extent to which students with and without disabilities interacted socially was highly variable and influenced by instructional format, the proximity of general and…

Longitudinal analyses on normal versus impaired functioning across 7 domains were conducted in children who had experienced profound institutional deprivation up to the age of 42 months and were adopted from Romania into U.K. families. Comparisons were made with noninstitutionalized children adopted from Romania and with nondeprived within-U.K.…