The report presents findings from interviews with 10 families with children (4-19 years old) with severe mental retardation and multiple disabilities regarding the need for technical aids and adaptations in their homes. The following areas are addressed and examples of solutions proposed: hygienic aids (hot water adaptations, travel adaptations,…

The report summarizes findings and recommendations of a project designed to promote transfer of training in basic skills from school to community for mildly retarded secondary students. Project objectives (including learning to drive, read schedules, work with others, and shop for groceries) are listed along with brief discussions of staffing,…

This collection of client outcome measures is designed to enhance the program evaluation capacity of state vocational rehabilitation agencies and to assist program evaluators in the selection of appropriate instruments through information about client measures in the areas of functional limitations, client change, client satisfaction, and client…

In an effort to evaluate the effectiveness of the Georgia Life Skills for Mental Health Leader's Guides, a panel of 13 teachers who had used the materials was assembled. The panel members filled out extensive questionnaires assessing the educational value, communicability, motivational value, utility and format of the Guides, whose purpose is to…

Describes a courseware development project at the University of Oregon which explored use of interactive video with mentally disabled students to teach life enhancement skills. Discussion of the results of a pilot study of one of the modules includes information on student achievement and teacher and student reactions. (MBR)

Defines five aspects of experiential education. Explains three perspectives of the future, those of the extrapolationist, the transitionist, and the transformationist. Notes implications of the work of Alvin Toffler, Elliot Seif, John Naisbitt, Willis Harman, Harold Shane, and others on the future of education. (SB)

A three-year study examining the effects of 15 resident camp programs on over 2,000 disabled campers ages 7-21 indicates that campers made notable achievements in both affective and recreational skills, that positive gains in personal development carried over to the home and community settings, and that increased independence was the predominant…

This study, with six high school students with moderate to severe disabilities, found that students who received concurrent sequence training demonstrated better generalized performance in three nontrained grocery stores than students who had received serial sequence training, once training criterion was attained though training required more…

Community-referenced sight words and phrases were taught to six adolescents with mild or moderate mental retardation, using three instructional methods in two locations. Results showed rapid acquisition of the sight words in all three training conditions and showed generalization from the flash card and videotape conditions to the community sites.…

The University of Nevada Cooperative Extension and a geographically large rural school district in Nevada conducted a program providing life-skills education to high-risk 5th graders. A survey of 92 8th- and 10th-grade students who had participated in the program indicated that the program produced long-term benefits in student attitudes and…

A telephone survey of 147 participants, ages 27 to 96, in a low-vision service program of an urban vision rehabilitation agency found that most respondents continued to use their devices every day for months after low-vision services were completed, and three-fourths reported that the services had a positive impact on their everyday functioning.…

This report describes and evaluates high school programs funded under Chapter 1, Part B, of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (ECIA) and administered by the Institutionalized Facilities Program of the New York City Public Schools in 1989-90. The program is designed to address the educational needs of students in facilities for…

The study examined aspects of daily living of Swedish children with osteogenesis imperfecta, a mineral deficiency in the skeleton which results in stunted growth and frequent fractures. A questionnaire was administered to 24 families with children under the age of 18 and 3 families were interviewed. The study found the families in great need of…

The Institutionalized Facilities Program, sponsored by the Division of Special Education of the New York City Public Schools, provides after-school or daily pull-out instruction in pre-vocational education, career education, and daily living skills to students residing in institutions for neglected or delinquent children and youth. In 1982-83, the…

Forty-nine clients who had been deinstitutionalized into community settings were matched with clients who remained in the institution. In a subsequent assessment, community clients surpassed institutional clients in social and cognitive skills (including reading/writing, quantitative, community orientation, leisure time, vocational, and social…