Environmental antecedents which affect management and maintenance of programs for self-injurious behavior.

This paper reports the effects of several environmental variables on the management and maintenance of a treatment program for self-injurious behavior (SIB) in residents in a state facility for retarded persons. Fifteen of the clients who participated in a developmental day-care program were compared across the final four months of the program and then at follow-up two years later. Twelve additional clients who were treated in the overall SIB program did not receive the day-care component, but were included in the follow-up study. Regarding program management, the effects of time, staff-initiated interactions, the presence of a newcomer or disruptive client, and medication changes on the behaviors of the 15 clients in the day-care program were assessed from an ecobehavioral approach. Participants in the follow-up study were compared with respect to the type of SIB program they received, the staff-patient ratio in their program, their visual impairment, use of self-protective devices, presence of stimulating material, and time-of-day observed. These issues are discussed in relation to program maintenance.

Memory for general and specific sentences.

Cued recall indicated that memory was better for sentences containing specific verbs (e.g., scratched) than for sentences containing general verbs (e.g., injured). When synonymic verb responses were included, however, the general-specific difference was eliminated. Also, for complete sentence recall, subject nouns were better retrieval cues than verbs or object nouns. nt]mis|This research was supported by National Science Foundation Research Grant GB-22664 to L. Starling Reid and by a grant to the author from the Denison University Faculty Development Activities Program. Thanks are due Bill Stehle and Larry Giordano, who assisted in data collection and analysis.