Defines goals of family-centered case management as empowerment of parents as caretakers and planners for their children. Describes model employing master's level social work case managers who serve rural Appalachian families with developmentally disabled children. Includes case illustration that delineates both case management activities and…

Utilizes fathers (N=3) and their developmentally disabled children, who ranged in age from 2 years 10 months to 4 years 5 months, to explore the impact of parent training. Also examines child compliance and inappropriate behaviors. Parent training resulted in desirable changes on a range of target behaviors. Discusses implications of the findings.…

This study examined the inter-rater reliability of clinician-assigned diagnosis of autism using or not using the criteria specified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV (DSM-IV). For experienced raters there was little difference in reliability in the two conditions. However, a clinically significant improvement in diagnostic reliability…

An intervention had three phases: (1) a worker who was taught instructional skills then taught a disabled worker a new task; (2) the nondisabled workers encouraged others to interact with the disabled worker; and (3) the disabled worker was taught appropriate conversational exchanges. Coworker instruction alone did not increase the disabled…

This article discusses how commonly used police interrogation techniques may result in coerced, false confessions by individuals with mental retardation and urges human service agencies and police departments to communicate with each other. It describes a nine-step interrogation technique and the authoritative pressures to which individuals with…

This paper considers the measurement of person-centered planning with developmentally disabled individuals. It reports on the development of three instruments to assess person-centered planning and both a process and an outcome index. Psychometric evaluation indicated test-retest reliability and measures of internal consistency were adequate.…

This article describes the autism surveillance activities of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. It considers why surveillance to track prevalence of autistic disorders is needed, how such surveillance is conducted, and the special challenges of autism surveillance. (DB)

Predictors of formal service utilization, waiting list use, and caregiving burden were assessed over a 4-year time period for 305 mothers of an adult child with mental retardation. Predictor variables included: residential status, burden, child behaviors at baseline, child placement; formal service use, co-residence at baseline, waiting list use,…

Behaviors that are appropriate, inappropriate, or a combination of both can be linked together in a behavior chain. When the contingencies for one response change (e.g., reinforcement is withheld for the last response in the chain; the last response is reinforced even if it occurs without the other responses in the chain) or the environmental…

A sequence of behaviors consisting of appropriate responses, inappropriate responses, or a combination of both can be linked together in a behavior chain. Several operant processes may disrupt behavior chains. For example, one or more members of the behavior chain may be affected when reinforcement is withheld for the last response in the chain…

The present study was carried out to further our understanding of the relationship between children's specific sleep difficulties and the diagnostic criteria for autism and, thereby, to inform the development of sleep treatment approaches tailored for individual children. Parents, participating in research that is part of a center-based…

Our focus in this paper is on efforts to include persons with developmental disabilities in faith communities. We provide a review of the relevant literature on religious participation and faith communities for persons with disabilities and blend the limited data available on these topics with the perspectives of individuals whose efforts focus on…

Recent studies have used pretreatment analyses, termed competing stimulus assessments, to identify items that most effectively displace the aberrant behavior of individuals with developmental disabilities. In most studies, there appeared to have been no systematic basis for selecting the sampling period (ranging from 30 s to 10 min) in which items…

This paper reviews behavioral treatments for sleep problems in children with a developmental disorder (DD). Sleep problems are common in children with a DD and children's sleep problems may be associated with adverse consequences including behaviour problems, compromised daytime functioning and family stress. However, the sleep intervention…

Under IDEA, when youths reach the age of majority they become responsible for their educational program, unless they are determined to be incompetent. When considering student competence, the issue of guardianship is often raised. Guardianship is inconsistent with the recent emphasis on self-determination. This study examined guardianship…