ABSTRACT
Outcome data from 17 brain-injured adolescents discharged from a rehabilitation centre during a 2-year period were analysed. The outcome measures were academic status and living environment. The descriptive variables were demographic, behavioural, psychological and neuropsychological data for each client. Before admission, 24% of the adolescents were living at home with their parents, 29% were in rehabilitation hospitals and 47% were in psychiatric settings. At discharge, 58% were living with their families, 23% were living in group homes, 12% were in supervised apartments and 5% were in an alternative rehabilitation centre. Academically, 53% were discharged into public schools, 23% were competitively employed and 23% attended special schools. Follow-up reports, dated 8-24 months post-discharge, found that 40% of the adolescents continued to live with their parents and 30% were in public schools. All of the adolescents were living and working or attending school in the community. Factors in the successful rehabilitation of brain-injured adolescents are discussed.
Subject(s)
Brain Damage, Chronic/psychology , Brain Injuries/rehabilitation , Achievement , Activities of Daily Living , Adolescent , Brain Injuries/psychology , Combined Modality Therapy , Female , Follow-Up Studies , Humans , Male , Rehabilitation, Vocational/psychology , Social EnvironmentABSTRACT
Twenty-seven mentally retarded employees of a sheltered workshop were trained on five discrimination tasks (wires, hardware, moldings, capacitors, and fasteners) using five combination of preference, prompt, and task agreement: all agree, preference different, prompt different, tasks different, and all different. The data revealed that when the learners were prompted in the dimension of the target discrimination (a) fewer errors were made, (b) training time was reduced, and (c) fewer training trials were required to reach criterion. Preference for a particular dimension (color, shape, or size, as measured by a screening test) did not significantly affect performance on the discrimination tasks. Findings were discussed in terms of the functions of prompts as feedback, reinforcement, and symbolic parts of a compound stimulus.
Subject(s)
Cues , Discrimination Learning , Form Perception , Intellectual Disability/psychology , Set, Psychology , Adult , Color Perception , Female , Humans , Intellectual Disability/rehabilitation , Male , Middle Aged , Psychomotor Performance , Rehabilitation, Vocational/psychology , Sheltered Workshops , Size PerceptionABSTRACT
Mentally retarded adults were presented with size and number discriminations using four stimulus conditions. In Condition 1, the S+ circles faded from large (Size 10) to smaller (Size 6) while the S- circles remained at Size 5 and number of circles varied randomly. In Condition 2, the S- squares faded in number from 1 to 5 while the S+ squares remained at Number 6, and size varied randomly. In Condition 3, simultaneous fading of the S+ and S- triangles occurred on size for 6 subjects and on number for the other 6. In Condition 4, fading did not occur on the S+ or S- hexagons. Each of the fading procedures (Conditions 1, 2, and 3) produced fewer errors on all 80 trials than did the no-fading control condition but did not differ significantly among themselves. These same results generally occurred for fading and test trials. Although fading has been used successfully to teach a variety of skills, systematic analyses of fading procedures clearly delineating component stimulus operations have been neglected.
