Frank M. Hewett

The Santa Monica Project: Evaluation of an Engineered Classroom Design with Emotionally Disturbed Children

Six public school classrooms of children with learning and behavior problems were studied to assess the effectiveness of an engineered classroom design. The experimental condition consisted of rigid adherence to the design while the control condition provided any type program the teacher chose except use of token and tangible rewards. Task attention and achievement gains in arithmetic fundamentals were found to be significantly correlated with the presence of the engineered design.

Educational engineering with emotionally disturbed children.

An engineered classroom design based on the behavior modification model has been developed and used in institutional and public schools. It attempts to provide a setting for implementation of a hierarchy of educational tasks, meaningful rewards for learning, and an appropriate degree of teacher structure. The classroom, students, and techniques are described.

A Hierarchy of Educational Tasks for Children with Learning Disorders

This article presents the concept of a hierarchy of educational task levels for the children with learning disorders. An attempt is made to formulate a set of working hypotheses which would enable educators to outline realistic goals for this type of child. The theoretical framework is an outgrowth of experiences with hospitalized emotionally handicapped children at the Neuropsychiatric Institute School, University of California, Los Angeles.

A hierarchy of competencies for teachers of emotionally handicapped children.

Descriptions of the characteristics necessary for effective teaching of emotionally handicapped children often emphasize personal giftedness. During a four year teacher training program at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute School, a hierarchy of competencies for such teachers was formulated which shifts the focus from educational artistry to trainable competencies. In order of importance, the teacher of the emotionally handicapped should be objective, flexible, structured, resourceful, a social reinforcer, a curriculum expert, and an intellectual model.

The Santa Monica Project

earlier sessions. The tutoring phase began the first of June and continued through August. The first several sessions were directed toward the establishment of rapport between student and teacher. With the development of a positive relationship, mathematical situations were examined as they related to everyday living experiences. As the tutoring sessions progressed, math experiences were also taken directly from the mathematics text. Peters current behavior, as reported by his eighth grade teacher, finds him a B to B+ student in a middle ability group. One case, of course, is not sufficient for wholesale advocation of desensitization therapy, but it does suggest the value of researching this hypothesis. This case study was conducted while the investigator was attending graduate school at the University of Virginia.

CONCEPTUAL MODELS FOR VIEWING MINIMAL BRAIN DYSFUNCTION: DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL MODIFICATION

The child with minimal brain dysfunction (MBD), whose hyperactivity, distractibility, awkwardness, impulsivity, and learning difficulties clearly separate him from his normal age-mates, becomes an intriguing subject for students of human behavior. Although there may be little disagreement that such a child is unique or that he may well have difficulty in the formal school learning situation, a number of differences between theorists and specialists who refer the child’s behavior to contrasting conceptual models are likely to emerge as they describe his problems, explain their origin, and suggest interventions to improve his level of functioning. It thus becomes important for a theorist to consider the eye of the beholder. In this paper, I shall explore representative references emanating from the field of developmental psychology and behavioral modification that are relevant to the problems of the child with MBD. In actuality, the area of my concern can be broadly defined as developmental psychology, since the roots of behavioral modification technology can be traced to the S-R theories of the past several decades that have concerned themselves with the developing child and the environmental variables influencing his development. I shall approach this domain by briefly surveying a variety of references for the behavior of all children, including the MBD child. These references include maturational level, stages of cognitive and personality development, field theory, and levels of competence in the perceptual-motor realm. They also include references that connect strictly developmental approaches to the child’s behavior with references concerned with behavioral learning processes. Finally, they include a referer-ce that is primarily concerned with the learning processes themselves, without focus on developmental levels, stages, or competencies. In my discussion of these references, I shall be particularly concerned with the description that emerges of the child with MBD, the nature of the explanation, if any, provided for the causes of his problem, and the potential of the reference for formulating interventions. is probably the best example of an almost purely maturational theory of child development. It sees the child’s growth and behavior in reference to a time schedule, and although not all maturational sequences can be said to develop at the same rate in all children, the important evidence for maturational processes is their relationship to clear chronological age differences. A number of the characteristics of MBD children who are in elementary school would be far less visible were they to appear in the first two years of life, although problems of degree and frequency might well have set the children apart even then. For example, the 18-month-old is described by Gesell as hyperactive: . . . charged with run-about compulsion . . . he lugs, tugs, dumps, pushes, The work of Gesell and Ilg

Strategies of Special Education

A learning disorder usually involves a myriad of attitudinal, perceptual-motor, academic, language, social, and behavioral components. In moving toward a more total child orientation which resists tunnel-vision and faddism, the special educator must draw from psychotherapeutic, neurologic, behavioral, and academic approaches. A close working relationship between teacher and physician is a vitally important part of this orientation.