Today, outdoor therapies are practiced in many nations around the world, with a broad diversity of philosophies, theories, methods, functions, and formats (Norton et al., 2015). The field of therapy within the outdoors has been much discussed and debated within the experiential profession (Itin, 1998). The disputes and deliberations have centred…

One of the most important technologies of behavior modifiers and applied behavior analysts over the last 40 years has been the token economy. These procedures are useful in that they help provide a structured therapeutic environment, and mimic other naturally occurring reinforcement systems such as the use of money. Token economies, at least from…

Transformation Education, an organizational philosophy and operating system, is designed to increase service quality and effectiveness of group care through aligning its organizational structure with its purpose. This alignment is achieved through creating a culture designed to dispense transformation rather than treatment. The author presents how…

Children with autism often have difficulty successfully applying newly acquired skills to novel situations. Naturalistic teaching procedures have been developed to help address this problem with generalization. These naturalistic procedures promote generalization through the use of natural consequences, diverse training, and the incorporation of…

Discusses the purpose and applications of confrontation and describes a multi-stage technique used in an adolescent unit. Carefully outlines each of the six stages of the technique and reviews the predicted therapeutic effects for each stage. The model is intended to overcome adolescents' denial and teach them self-recognition skills. (RJM)

In recent years, most disagreement about stuttering therapy has boiled down to a preference for one of two major approaches. Some clinicians have preferred to help stutterers learn not to avoid stuttering, but to approach it and to learn to stutter in simpler and easier ways; this approach is known as stuttering modification therapy. Proponents of…

Parents are unaware, or may deny the existence, of elective mutism in their children. School psychologists should inform them of the problem's severity and encourage family therapy. School personnel need to develop innovative strategies and reinforcers to ameliorate the disorder. A supportive attitude in conjunction with behavioral techniques are…

This paper describes a community-based treatment model for people who are psychiatrically disabled and living outside an institutional setting. The background of the Community Rehabilitation Approach (CRA) is described including Training in Community Living (TCL) which involves: (1) assertively bringing treatment to the client directly in the…

The PRYDE program is described as a foster family-based treatment program which has treated a wide diversity of seriously disturbing child behaviors since 1981 with a 70% success rate of discharging children to less restrictive settings. Children are treated individually within separate families and local communities, thus avoiding problems…

A therapeutic approach, including transactional analysis, assertiveness training, personal causation and modeling theories, was effectively incorporated into the Wilderness Experience Program (WEP) for problem youth, to meet the goal of developing an emancipated individual who could assume responsibility, develop realistic self-expectancies and…

This issue of "Perceptions" contains an introductory article by guest editor Herbert Foster--"A Variety of Programs"--and seven articles describing programs for educating emotionally disturbed children in New York. "A Very Special Place" (Susan Kosberg and Bernie Kosberg) describes a therapeutic camping milieu located…