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The activity preferences of 15 adults with intellectual disabilities from eight community-based residential programs were assessed by the participants themselves, residential program staff, and advocates. The study provides descriptive information concerning the degree to which participants' perceived activity preferences were subsequently included in their Individualized Habilitation Plans (IHPs). Results indicate that 78% of participants' IHP objectives were preferred activities. Further analyses revealed that preferred activities requiring a greater degree of staff support were included on the IHP as training objectives, and preferred activities that participants performed infrequently were included as participation objectives. The study indicates a need for more information about how to assess and honor the preferences of people with severe disabilities.

For generalization to be functional, it must occur with a precision that results in acquired responses occurring under appropriate, nontrained conditions, and acquired responses not occurring under inappropriate, nontrained conditions. This study examines the effect of differing types of negative teaching examples on the precision with which generalized grocery item selection is learned. Within a split-multiple baseline design, six young adults identified as mildly, moderately, or severely mentally retarded were trained to select or to reject grocery items using picture cards as cues. The dependent variables were correct selection of 10 trained "positive" grocery items and the correct rejection of 20 nontrained "negative" grocery items in a nontrained grocery store. Participants were trained in a grocery store to select 10 positive grocery examples matching their picture cards and to reject either (a) a set of negative examples that were maximally different from the positive examples, or (b) a set of negative examples that were minimally different from the positive examples. Both training sets resulted in participants correctly selecting the 10 positive items in a nontrained store. Training with the "minimally different" negative examples was functionally related to improved rejection of nontrained negative items in the nontrained store. The implications of teaching with minimally different, negative examples are discussed.

The effects of general case instruction for teaching street crossing to individuals with moderate and severe mental retardation were examined. Three dependent variables were assessed within a multiple baseline probe design across subjects. The first measure was performance across a group of 20 nontrained streets systematically selected to represent the range of street crossing situations encountered in the subjects' home town. The second dependent variable was performance across 20 additional nontrained streets selected individually for each subject by parents or guardians as particularly relevant in the subject's daily life. The third dependent variable was the number of training trials to criterion. Two subjects completed training with the third serving as a no-treatment control. Results support the effectiveness and efficiency of general case instruction for teaching subjects to cross nontrained streets. Implications for further research on generalization and for instructional programming in the community are addressed.

Teachers often provide classroom based instruction on the assumption that behaviors learned in the classroom will be performed in natural settings. The present study examines this assumption by comparing the effectiveness of three strategies for purchasing grocery store items with four high school students labeled moderately or severely retarded. Students were trained to negotiate payment to the cashier by (a) role playing in the classroom with flashcards designating the amount of purchase, (b) role playing in the classroom with slides of cash registers at different amounts, or (c) role playing with the slides and in vivo training in one store. A multiple baseline design across subjects indicates afunctional relationship between the combined slide and in vivo strategy and correct performance across a range of nontrained probe stores. Neither role playing strategy alone was successful at teaching a generalized purchasing skill. The data are discussed in terms of research implications for studying generalization and instructional recommendations for teachers.

Oregon has been identified as a leader in maintaining students with severe disabilities in regular school environments (Danielson & Bellamy, 1989). This paper presents descriptive data from a survey completed by teachers of students with severe disabilities in Oregon during 1988. The survey was designed to determine if students with severe disabilities who engage in problem behaviors are placed in regular school settings in Oregon, and what organizational variables were used to assist such students to be part of regular schools. The survey of teachers working with students with severe disabilities was conducted in collaboration with the Oregon Department of Education. Seventy-five percent of the teachers responded to the survey. They identified 184 students as having severe intellectual disabilities and severe problem behaviors (0.4% of all students in the state receiving special education support). The teachers reported that the major extra support for students with severe problem behaviors was in the form of additional teaching assistants. The teachers reported that they did not feel adequately prepared in their preservice training to deal with students with severe problem behaviors, and did not feel there were adequate resources for supporting such students. When queried about educational outcomes, however, the teachers reported that over 90% of students with severe problem behavior spent some portion of each school day socially integrated with students who were not disabled, and that over 40% of the students with problem behaviors spent some time each week physically integrated through community-based instruction. The paper discusses the challenge faced by schools as they attempt to build the capacity to support students with more significant behavior problems.

This article reports information on the interrelations among measures of lifestyle quality for 20 adults with severe disabilities living in the community. Using two interview-based measures, data were collected on the social networks and activity patterns of the participants. The results indicate that the overall size of the social networks and the number of family members were highly associated with a greater frequency and variety of activities across home and community settings. The results also indicate that neither the number of social network members paid to provide support, nor the number of friends were significantly related to activity patterns. Finally, implications for measuring lifestyle quality and the use of outcome-based measures for assisting people to build and maintain social relationships are presented.

Social integration and social support are critical elements in determining a person's quality of life. To date, however, very little descriptive information is available on patterns of social contact between persons with severe disabilities and typical members of local communities. This report presents information on the social interaction patterns of 23 adults with severe disabilities across a 2 1/2-year time period. The staff in small, community-based residential programs collected continuous counts of the activities performed by residents and the people (companions) with whom activities were performed. Only those contacts that occurred with people other than people paid to provide support or other residents in the program were counted. The results indicate great variability in the social contact patterns across the 23 people observed, but that on the average they had contact with 63.5 different companions across the 30 months of observation. Social contacts occurred on the average of once every 2 days, and the durability of social contacts indicated that companions seldom continued the relationship beyond a 12-month period, except for family members or someone perceived as a "best friend." Examination of the final year of observation indicates that the 23 people met about 17 new individuals across the 12-month period. The report offers implications of these results for further research on social contacts and the development of support strategies for building and maintaining social relationships.

This article describes a nonaversive procedure to increase the probability that students with moderate and severe handicapping conditions will follow a directive to begin to work. Pretask requesting was evaluated using an ABA and BAB reversal design across four students with moderate and severe handicaps. The study suggests that familiar, rapidly paced, verbal directions with reinforcement can effectively mediate transitions from one activity to another. The theoretical implications of the procedure for a nonaversive technology of preemptive behavioral treatment are discussed.

The technology of applied behavior analysis has documented impressive advances in procedures for changing behavior. Behavior change is often functional, however, only if it endures over time and is performed in nontrained situations. One approach to building a technology that meets these standards has been systematic analysis of generalization "successes." The present paper extends this approach through an analysis of generalization failures (i.e., the patterns of generalization errors). A format is provided for categorizing the errors made in generalization situations, and linking these errors back to stimulus characteristics present during training. Stimulus control serves as the pivotal concept that directs this error analysis, and provides the bridge between infrahuman research on generalization and the broader applied issue of obtaining performance across nontrained situations. Implications of the error analysis are defined for building a technology of generalization, and for developing an effective research methodology for studying generalized responding in applied settings.

TASH's historic commitment to advocacy and science has enabled it to be a trusted voice for people with severe disabilities and their families. We review recent developments in the controversy over facilitated communication (FC) in light of major contextual continuities and changes in the past two decades. A series of scholarly reviews of the literature on controlled experiments have established a preponderance of evidence that FC is not reliably an expression from the individual who receives facilitation. Evidence indicates that the facilitator is the usual source of the text. We discuss the standards of proof of efficacy that must apply before an intervention should be endorsed by a national organization that aims to have a major impact on policy and practices. The need for controlled experiments in evaluation interventions is discussed. The central concern in establishing efficacy of a practice is to rule out other plausible explanations for an outcome. The main concern in establishing effectiveness is replication under real-world conditions. The science-based practices movement has been taken up by most of the helping professions contributing to the education and support of people with severe disabilities. The movement aims to identify practices and catalog them in terms of the trustworthiness of the evidence supporting them. The movement has led to establishing standards for determining when an intervention can be said to be efficacious. We urge TASH to join this movement and, in light of a commitment to science-based practices, argue that it should withdraw its stated endorsement of FC, which is not supported by science-based research.

This study describes the results of a functional analysis of aggressive behaviors with a 14-year-old boy with moderate mental retardation. An initial analysis showed that aggression occurred during instruction on difficult tasks, but was less likely to occur when extra teacher assistance was provided. We interpreted the initial analysis as indicating that aggression and teacher assistance both served the function of escaping from difficult tasks (either by avoiding the task altogether, or by making it easier to perform). We subsequently taught the student and compared the effects of two response alternatives for requesting assistance: a high effort/low efficiency response of typing "help please" on an electronic communication device, and a low effort/high efficiency response of pressing a single key that produced the same message. Use of the low efficiency response did not result in a durable reduction of aggression. The high efficiency response, once trained, occurred frequently, and was associated with substantial decreases in aggression. A collateral increase in the use of a pointing response suggests that the effects of the intervention were generalized to a second communication response. The study supports existing recommendations for conducting systematic functional analyses to define the variables maintaining undesirable behavior, and to teach functionally equivalent alternative responses as a strategy for decreasing undesirable behaviors. The results also indicate the need to assess the relative efficiency of appropriate and problem behaviors when designing functional equivalence programs.

Outcome measures that document activity patterns provide an empirical basis for improving the lifestyles of adults with severe disabilities. This report provides a psychometric assessment of an instrument, the Resident Lifestyle Inventory (RLI), that can be used to measure the activities performed by such persons. In a series of three assessments the congruent validity (Assessment 1), test-retest reliability (Assessment 2), and social validity (Assessment 3) of the RLI were analyzed to determine its acceptability as a measurement instrument for documenting activity patterns. Results from the three assessments demonstrated that the RLI is a psychometrically acceptable measure that is used accurately by residential programs. It is perceived by support staff to be a useful strategy for improving lifestyle quality. Implications of this report are provided for the role of outcome measures in community-based residential support, the individualized plan development process, and future research.

Two studies designed to increase the low production rates of severely retarded workers in a sheltered workshop setting are described. In one, differential reinforcement of higher rate was used to increase the rate of assembly of a cable harness from 13% of the standard rate of normal workers to almost 50% of the norm standard. In the second, a system of self-delivery of reward was used to shorten the time required to assemble a test adapter. The subject was trained successfully to perform a quality control check. The implications of the two studies for sheltered workshop settings are explored.

We conducted an observational study of parent-child interaction in home activity settings (routines) of families raising young children with developmental disabilities and problem behavior. Our aim was to empirically investigate the construct validity of coercion in typical but unsuccessful family routines. The long-term goal was to develop an expanded ecological unit of analysis that may contribute to sustainable behavioral family intervention. Ten children with autism and/or mental retardation and their families participated. Videotaped observations were conducted in typical but unsuccessful home routines. Parent-child interaction in routines was coded in real time and sequential analyses were conducted to test hypotheses about coercive processes. Following observation, families were interviewed about the social validity of the construct. Results confirmed the presence of statistically significant, attention-driven coercive processes in routines in which parents were occupied with non-child-centered tasks. Results partially confirmed the presence of escape-driven coercive processes in routines in which parent demands are common. Additional analysis revealed an alternative pattern with greater magnitude. Family perspectives suggested the social validity of the construct. Results are discussed in terms of preliminary, partial evidence for coercive processes in routines of families of children with developmental disabilities. Implications for behavioral assessment and intervention design are discussed.