This study evaluated quality of orientation of reviewers of proposals submitted to the federal program, "Training Personnel for the Education of the Handicapped." The degree of consistency among groups of reviewers (n=184) who received various amounts of orientation training was compared. Findings suggested value in assigning fewer applications…

Reviews efforts undertaken in weed identification field training sessions for agriprofessionals in South Carolina. Data over a four year period (1980-1983) revealed that participants showed significant improvement in their ability to identify weeds. Reaffirms the value of the field demonstration technique. (ML)

The study with three blind and mentally retarded adults with additional disabilities found that general case simulation instruction in housekeeping skills led to generalization to untrained settings. Degree of generalization was inversely related to the severity and complexity of participant disability. (Author/DB)

The study evaluated the effects of a time-efficient reinforcer assessment package with three preschoolers with autism. Systematic assessment of children's reinforcers for correct responding virtually eliminated nontargeted maladaptive behaviors, and yielded expected improvements in accuracy. (Author/DB)

The study with four adults with moderate and severe mental handicaps found that both backward and concurrent chaining training strategies were equally effective in teaching use of a fast food restaurant and a supermarket. (Author/DB)

This paper evaluates a program for assessing and/or training choice-making skills as a means of providing opportunities for adults with profound mental retardation to express food and drink preferences. In Experiment 1, the assessment/training procedure involving repeated, paired-item presentations, resulted in active choice-making and the…

The report documents evaluation by the Office of Educational Assessment of first year (1983-84) implementation by the New York City school system of the Least Restrictive Placement Personnel Training Program. Program goals were to develop and field-test training materials for a population of approximately 700 special and general education…

A visually-impaired 17-year-old was videotaped in a work setting before and after vocational training. The videotape was shown to 35 graduate students and student teachers, whose ratings of the student's vocational competence validated behavior changes (e.g., job task accuracy) resulting from the training as being clinically important. (Author/JDD)

The acceptability of two different training methods (simulation training using a doll and simulation training on self) for teaching menstrual hygiene skills to young women with developmental disabilities was evaluated in two experiments. Results suggested that opinions about treatment acceptability should be obtained from both professional and…

The handbook describes a method of teaching communication skills to students with severe disabilities (severely and profoundly retarded, trainable mentally retarded, autistic, deaf blind, and severely multihandicapped). In the interrupted behavior chain procedure, a routinized activity in a natural setting is interrupted and the child is taught to…

Three high school students with severe disabilities were taught turn-taking conversational skills utilizing a communication book (containing pictures pertaining to the student's interest areas). After training, which included minimal training of conversational partners, balanced conversational turn-taking increased significantly and skills…

This paper offers training strategies designed to help profoundly hearing-impaired children learn to use information delivered via the Tactaid II+, a two-channel vibrotactile device. The paper describes function and monitoring of the aid, training activities, realistic and unrealistic goals, and a case study illustrating speech perception…

A multifaceted method (involving verbal and hands-on training) was used to teach aerobic exercises to 3 totally blind women (ages 24-37). All three women demonstrated positive gains in their performance, physical fitness, and attitudes toward participating in future mainstream aerobic exercise classes. (DB)

Self-management strategy training was given to four learning-disabled adolescent males. The subjects mastered the steps in seven to nine sessions and went on to apply the strategy to target behaviors following which these behaviors were at or above criterion in both training and generalization settings. (Author/DB)

This paper focuses on item design considerations faced by instructional designers and evaluators when using computer videodisc delivery systems as a means of assessing learner comprehension and competencies. Media characteristics of various interactive computer/videodisc training systems are briefly discussed as well as reasons for using such…