Lisbeth Vincent

Using the Characteristics of Current and Subsequent Least Restrictive Environments in the Development of Curricular Content for Severely Handicapped Students.

This paper is designed to address several critical issues that pertain to the development of longitudinal curricular content for use with severely handicapped students. More specifically, to emphasize: (a) the importance of the principle of partial participation; (b) the need to create a wide variety of adaptations that might allow severely handicapped students at least to participate in many environments and activities from which they have been excluded; and (c) a rationale for using current and subsequent environment orientations and ecological inventory strategies in curriculum development processes. In addition, the authors present a cursory example of how ecological inventory strategies and current and subsequent environment orientations might be combined to generate chrononogical age appropriate curricular content.

Increasing Parental Decision-Making at the Individualized Educational Program Meeting

The purpose of this study was to develop a training package for parents and school staff to increase parent participation at the Individualized Educational Program (IEP) meeting. Fourteen parents with young handicapped children participated. The seven parents in the experimental group completed a developmental assessment on their childs present performance, recorded their family profile, and had a meeting with a school/community liaison person prior to their childs IEP meeting. The seven parents In the control group received a letter stating the purpose of the IEP meeting prior to their childs IEP conference. School staff who attended experimental group IEP meetings received summaries of the parent-generated developmental assessment and family profile. At the IEP meeting experimental parents presented their goals and concerns first. Statistical analyses indicated a significantly greater frequency in contributions, goals generated, and programming decisions made at IEP meetings by parents In the experimental group. School staff provided more home programming suggestions to parents In the experimental group and made more decisions for parents In the control group. All parents reported a high level of satisfaction with their childs IEP meeting on a follow-up questionnaire.

Integrating handicapped and typical children during the preschool years: the definition of best educational practice

Security Act, the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment program was mandated. This program was designed to screen all children eligible for Medicaid (approximately 13 million) for physical and mental defects and to provide treatment to remediate identified problems. In 1968 PL 90-538, the Handicapped Children’s Early Education Act, was passed. Through this law the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped created the Handicapped Children’s Early Education Program. The purpose of this program was to provide support for model/demonstration efforts in the area of providing innovative services to preschool-age handicapped children and their families. Over 300 programs have been developed and funded through this program. In 1972 amendments to the Head Start Law

Strategies for Generating Comprehensive, Longitudinal, and Chronological-Age-Appropriate Individualized Education Programs for Adolescent and Young-Adult Severely Handicapped Students:

If chronological-age-appropriate and functional curricular content is to be developed, the basic components of an individualized education program (IEP) as mandated by P.L. 94-142 must be supplemented, expanded, and instructionally defined in relation to the unique educational needs of each severely handicapped student. A six-phase process for developing IEPs for such students is presented. It is intended that this six-phase process be considered in attempts to generate individualized interpretations of many of the concepts in P.L. 94-142. Furthermore, it is intended that progression through the phases will result in closer approximations of chronological-age-appropriate IEPs than if only components stipulated by P.L. 94-142 are considered.

Changing Economic and Social Influences on Family Involvement.

Summarized are the changes that have impacted on the American family in the past two decades. Incidences of single parenthood, divorce, out-of-home childcare, and their impact on family stability and resources are reviewed. The implications of these factors for achieving the family focus in early intervention services, which was outlined in P.L. 99–457, are addressed.

The Differences in Inappropriate Behavior and Instructional Interactions in Sheltered and Nonsheltered Work Environments.

The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the nature and frequency of the instructional interactions and work-related behavior of 15 workers in nonsheltered vocational environments to 15 workers in sheltered environments. Workers in nonsheltered and sheltered environments were observed using a discontinuous time sampling procedure for approximately three 1-hour sessions. Data were collected during work and break times on instructional interactions between the workers with disabilities and their co-workers and supervisors. Additionally, data were collected on the frequency of eight categories of behavior labeled as inappropriate by observers. The results revealed that the workers in nonsheltered environments engaged in significantly more instructional interactions with supervisors and exhibited significantly fewer occurrences of inappropriate behavior.

The Use of Expansions as a Language Intervention Technique in the Natural Environment

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of expansions as a language intervention technique with children at a pre-syntactic level of language development. The ease with which adults could be trained to deliver such intervention during play was also investigated. Five preschool children with delays in language development spent 20 minutes a day in play with an adult trained to use expansions of child utterances as an intervention technique on selected language structures. Statistical analysis demonstrated a significant increase in the production of targeted structures after 4 weeks of intervention. A follow-up observation revealed that structures were still spontaneously used by three of the five children several weeks later in a different situation. The ease with which adults were trained to use this procedure makes it valuable for training regular preschool teachers, parents, and paraprofessionals to carry out language intervention in natural environments.

1:1 versus 1:3 Instruction of Severely Multihandicapped Students.

This study investigated how the responses of three multihandicapped students differed in 1:1 and 1:3 arrangements. Data were collected on the motoric responses made by each student during a 45-minute snack session. In the 1:3 arrangements, the teacher instructed the students concurrently. In the 1:1 arrangements, each student was provided with 1:1 instruction for a portion of the 45-minute session and was wheeled to a free time area for the remaining portion. Results indicated that the students made more task-relevant responses and fewer counterproductive responses during the 1:3 than during the 1:1 arrangements when the data from the free time portions were included in the analysis.

Induction, Emergence, and Generalization of Logical Operations in Retarded Children: A Training-To-Criterion Procedure

Thirty mildly retarded children participated in a study in which 24 of the children were trained to a prespecified criterion on one of 3 logical operations tasks involving length: identity conservation, equivalence conservation, or transitivity. The ease with which the concepts were trained suggested that the natural order of emergence was transitive inference → equivalence conservation → identity conservation. Significant amounts of generalization to untrained concepts (interconceptual) were evident, as well as generalization to the untrained dimension of weight (intraconceptual). It was concluded that intensive training to a prespecified criterion is capable of producing generalization to concepts dealing with logicomathematical reasoning in mentally retarded children.