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Biomedical subjects

R H Horner

Publications and source records attributed to R H Horner.

31 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1990

Comparison of simulation training on self and using a doll for teaching generalized menstrual care to women with severe mental retardation.

This study examined the effects of two simulation methods of general case instruction in teaching generalized menstrual care; long-term maintenance was assessed up to 18 months. Within a split multiple-baseline design across subjects, three middle-school students and one adult woman with severe or profound mental retardation initially were assigned either to on-self instruction or to instruction using a doll. The two learners receiving doll training also participated in instruction on self. A modified forward chaining procedure with identical task analysis steps was used with each method. The range of positive and negative training examples used also was identical for the two techniques except that doll-size underwear and sanitary pads were used for doll training. Participants were taught (by demonstrating on themselves or by manipulating the doll) to change stained underwear and stained pads and not to change underwear or to obtain a pad in the absence of a stain. The dependent variables consisted of simulation and in vivo (natural menses) assessment probes and reflected the percentage of trials in which all task analysis steps were performed correctly. Correct performance on critical menstrual-care steps alone also was assessed. Results indicated limited generalization after training using a doll. While all four learners demonstrated high levels of generalized responding following on-self instruction, the effect decreased over time for two participants. Implications for defining the dependent variable, selecting teaching examples, and enhancing maintenance are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Effects of case manager feedback on the quality of individual habilitation plan objectives.

The functional relation between feedback by a case manager and improved writing of Individual Habilitation Plan (IHP) objectives in adult service agencies was assessed. Feedback on seven features of IHP objectives was delivered by the local case manager to program staff of four agencies providing residential or vocational support to adults with moderate to severe disabilities. The results demonstrate that each of the four agencies improved the quality of their written objectives after receiving feedback from the case manager and maintained those gains 18 months after feedback was terminated. Implications for case managers as feedback agents were discussed.

Community Mental Health Services↗
PubMed1989

Effects of undesirable, competing behaviors on the generalization of adaptive skills. A case study.

This study provides a systematic demonstration of generalization failures in which irrelevant stimulus control of competing responses interferes with, or overrides, the stimulus control of adaptive behavior developed during training. Appropriate and inappropriate verbal responses by a 26-year-old woman with severe mental retardation served as the dependent variables. A reversal design across trained and nontrained settings indicates that presenting a stimulus with a prior history of control over "inappropriate" verbalizations concurrently with a stimulus controlling newly acquired "appropriate" verbalizations significantly reduces the strength of the appropriate stimulus-control relationship. The implications for training generalized skills are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Building response classes: a comparison of two procedures for teaching generalized pouring to learners with severe disabilities.

Five individuals with profound mental retardation received instruction on liquid pouring. The effects of two training strategies on performance with nontrained pitchers and receptacles were compared within a split multiple baseline design across subjects. One training approach followed general case instruction guidelines in which both difficult and easy teaching examples were selected that sampled the range of relevant stimulus and response variation. The second training approach approximated the early steps in an easy-to-hard sequencing strategy and involved using only a set of easy teaching examples that did not sample the full range of relevant stimulus and response variation required for successful pouring in natural settings. Results indicated that only after training with the full set of general case examples did the learners become competent with the nontrained generalization probe tasks. In addition, the set of easy examples resulted in learners performing topographically predictable errors with the generalization probe tasks.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1987

Acquisition of generalized telephone use by students with moderate and severe mental retardation.

This study examines the effects of one approach for selecting teaching examples on the development of generalized telephone skills with moderately and severely mentally retarded high school students. Four subjects were taught to make and receive telephone calls within a counterbalanced multiple baseline design. The primary dependent variable was generalization of telephone skills to nontrained telephone situations in home, school, and community settings. Results document the effectiveness and efficiency of the training approach. An eighteen-month validation assessment also shows that telephone use continued as a regular part of each student's lifestyle. The instructional implications of these results are discussed as well as methodological implications for applied research on generalization.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1987

Self-recruited feedback: a cost-effective procedure for maintaining behavior.

The maintenance of learned behavior is a problem faced frequently by teachers of persons with severe disabilities. The present study examines the use of a self-management procedure to improve and maintain work performance of young adults with severe disabilities in integrated job settings. Students were taught to self-monitor work rate on job tasks, evaluate daily performance against a criterion, and recruit contingent feedback from supervisors. A multiple baseline design across subjects, and two within series reversals, indicate a functional relationship between self-recruited feedback and maintenance of improved work rate. Self-monitoring of work rate alone was not a consistently effective maintenance strategy. Results are discussed in terms of the need for a comprehensive technology of maintenance that requires a low response cost to apply over long periods of time.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Response variation and the generalization of a dressing skill: comparison of single instance and general case instruction.

Two, identical multiple-baseline-across-subjects designs were used to compare the effects of single instance and general case instruction on the generalized dressing of youth and adults with severe mental retardation. Performance across eight nontrained, probe shirts was used to assess generalization of the skill "putting on pullover shirts." Following training with a single shirt, subjects exhibited limited success with the eight nontrained shirts. Only after training with a set of shirts that sampled the range of stimulus and response variation for "putting on pullover shirts" was successful generalization observed. Results suggest that the response variations taught during general case instruction played a major role in improved performance across the nontrained shirts. Implications of the results are discussed for instruction in applied settings, and for research methodology in the analysis of generalization.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1984

The effects of single instance, multiple instance, and general case training on generalized vending machine use by moderately and severely handicapped students.

This report provides an experimental analysis of generalized vending machine use by six moderately or severely retarded high school students. Dependent variables were training trials to criterion and performance on 10 nontrained "generalization" vending machines. A multiple-baseline design across subjects was used to compare three strategies for teaching generalized vending machine use. Training occurred with (a) a single vending machine, (b) three similar machines, or (c) three machines that sampled the range of stimulus and response variation in a defined class of vending machines. Results indicated that the third approach was the most effective method of obtaining generalized responding. Methodological implications for the experimental analysis of generalization and programmatic implications for teaching generalized behaviors are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1981

Stimulus control, transfer, and maintenance of upright walking posture in a severely mentally retarded adult.

The extent to which behavioral interventions achieve clinical significance frequently rests on whether gains made during an intervention transfer across settings and maintain over time. Critical to this measure of significance is the extent to which manipulation of variables in one setting affects responding in other settings. In the present study a method of obtaining stimulus control of upright walking posture used with one severely retarded adult was described and the effects that varying antecedent and consequent variables in a training setting have on upright posture in a transfer setting was examined. Results indicated that improved posture in the transfer setting was functionally related to manipulation of training-setting variables. Maintenance of posture gains in the transfer setting was excellent across a 3-month follow-up phase.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

Performance of three severely mentally retarded adults on vocational response chains during extinction.

The intrachain performance patterns of three severely retarded adults were analyzed under continuous reinforcement and extinction schedules. The three subjects performed a nine-step operant chain that required the placement of eight electrical components in a circuit board blank. The time to perform the entire chain and the time taken at each step of the chain were electronically monitored. A combined multiple-baseline, ABA reversal design was used. Reinforcers were delivered following completion of the chain during A phases and withheld during the B phase. Data indicated that overall chain performance was slower during extinction, and this effect was due primarily to reduced response speed on the early steps in the chain. Implications of these data for vocational habilitation of retarded adults were discussed.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Analysis of an escalating sequence of problem behaviors: a case study.

This case study focused on a student with severe disabilities who displayed multiple problem behaviors that fit a pattern of behavioral escalation. Analysis of the pattern in which problem behaviors occurred within instructional sessions, and comparisons of conditional rates of occurrence for specific behaviors to overall base rates of occurrence, indicated that the student's problem behaviors did represent a behavioral sequence. Functional assessment led to the hypothesis that the use of rule statements by the teacher was related to the occurrence and escalation of the problem behaviors. An ABAB reversal design showed that eliminating the use of rule statements was an effective instructional intervention for decreasing the rate of the student's problem behaviors. Independent ratings of the physical effort required for specific problem behaviors in the sequence suggested that response effort may be one variable underlying the pattern of responding within a behavioral sequence. Implications are offered for our theoretical understanding of complex patterns of problem behaviors and for future research and clinical intervention.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Social skills and the stability of social relationships between individuals with intellectual disabilities and other community members.

Stability of social relationships may be an important indicator of lifestyle quality. Fifteen individuals with intellectual disabilities participated in an analysis of the relationship between their social skills (as measured via the Scales of Independent Behavior and the Assessment of Social Competence) and the stability of the social relationships they experienced with other community members, who were neither paid staff nor family members, across the course of 94 consecutive weeks. A participant's social skills did a moderately good job of predicting the average social stability achieved by all of his or her social network members, but a poorer job of predicting the average social stability achieved by the participant's three most stable social network members. The findings suggest that the stability of a participant's most stable social network members is based not on the participant's social skills, but rather on other factors.

Activities of Daily Living↗