Børge Strømgren

Psychiatric and behavioral disturbances in elderly mentally retarded before and after deinstitutionalization

Before deinstitutionalization for the mentally retarded in Norway it was argued that the ordinary health care system could give the same or better health care than the institutions, and that institutions created psychiatric health problems that would diminish or disappear with their closing. The present study examines the psychiatric health problems and the psychiatric health services received in an elderly, formerly institutionalized, population in a Norwegian county before and after deinstitutionalization. Psychiatric disorders remained frequent, and did not change after deinstitutionalization. Minor behavioral disturbances increased in spite of deinstitutionalization and improved living conditions. Access to qualified help from psychiatrists and psychologists was low, with a decrease in the use of psychologists.Before deinstitutionalization for the mentally retarded in Norway it was argued that the ordinary health care system could give the same or better health care than the institutions, and that institutions created psychiatric health problems that would diminish or disappear with their closing. The present study examines the psychiatric health problems and the psychiatric health services received in an elderly, formerly institutionalized, population in a Norwegian county before and after deinstitutionalization. Psychiatric disorders remained frequent, and did not change after deinstitutionalization. Minor behavioral disturbances increased in spite of deinstitutionalization and improved living conditions. Access to qualified help from psychiatrists and psychologists was low, with a decrease in the use of psychologists.

Comparability of the Social Skills Improvement System to the Social Skills Rating System: A Norwegian Study.

The Social Skills Improvement System-Rating Scales (SSIS-RS) is a multi-informant instrument assessing social skills and problem behavior in children and adolescents. It is a revised version of the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS). A Norwegian translation of the SSRS has been validated, but this has not yet been done for the Norwegian translation of the SSIS-RS. This study compared the Norwegian versions of the SSRS and the SSIS-RS administered to samples of children (aged 8–12 and 13–16 years) and their parents and teachers (n = 599). The results indicated moderate to strong relations between the common subscales across all forms of the two instruments and acceptable to excellent internal consistency across all common subscales. We conclude that the SSIS-RS is a good instrument for measuring social skills and problem behavior among children and adolescents in Norway.

Preliminary results of Aggression Replacement Training for Norwegian youth with aggressive behaviour and with a different diagnosis

Abstract We present a short summary of the efforts to disseminate Aggression Replacement Training (ART) in Norway following an initial seminar held by Arnold Goldstein in 2000. Data from a pilot study conducted into the effectiveness of ART with children and youth with aggressive behaviour and with a different diagnosis are presented. The data indicate that ART can be an appropriate and effective intervention.

The Use of Precision Teaching to Teach Basic Math Facts

A Precision Teaching program for basic math facts was designed for students in the 5th, 6th, and 7th grade level in a regular primary school. Forty-eight typically developing students who were nominated by their teacher as falling behind their classmates in multiplication and division participated. Following a randomization there were two groups of 24 each: one that received Precision Teaching and one that received treatment as usual. The Precision Teaching intervention was put in place for 20 minutes each school day of the week for eight weeks. Tests were performed before and after the program, and also at follow up which was one month after termination of the Precision Teaching intervention. The group receiving Precision Teaching improved more on the tests than did the group receiving “treatment as usual”, i.e. the regular mathematic instruction. Furthermore, on an individual level, more students in the Precision Teaching group showed reliable improvement. This study adds to the knowledge of the efficacy and importance of Precision Teaching and mathematic performance monitoring.