Paula K. Davis

The use of video self-modelling and feedback to teach cooking skills to individuals with traumatic brain injury: A pilot study

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of video self-modelling plus prompting and feedback to teach a cooking skill to people with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to examine skill generalization to a novel food item. Research design: Multiple probe across participants. Methods and procedures: Four individuals with TBI received instruction in cooking. They watched videotapes of themselves cooking and practiced that skill while receiving prompts and feedback. Treatment effects were evaluated by comparing performance before, during and after training and at a 2 and 4 week follow-up. Additionally, cooking performance on a novel food item was examined. Main outcomes and results: Three of the four individuals achieved criterion performance within four training sessions. Those individuals also substantially maintained their skills 2 and 4 weeks following training and generalized their skills to a novel food item. Conclusions: Video self-modelling plus prompting and feedback appears to be an effective treatment for teaching simple cooking skills to individuals with TBI. Further research should examine whether the video alone is sufficient for skill acquisition and evaluate the effectiveness of video self-modelling to teach other skills.

A supported relationships intervention to increase the social integration of persons with traumatic brain injuries

A supported relationships intervention was used to increase the integrated social contacts (ISCs) of 3 persons with traumatic brain injury (TBI) who were each matched with 4 community participants. The intervention consisted of asking participants to meet with their matched counterpart to engage in leisure activities once per week for 4 weeks. Additionally, community participants were provided with a brief training session on TBI, were given specific suggestions on interacting with the persons with TBI with whom they were matched, and received weekly phone calls from the researcher. Frequency of ISCs were analyzed with a multiple baseline design across participants. All 3 participants with TBI increased the frequency of ISCs after implementation of the supported relationships intervention and continued to experience more than baseline levels of ISCs during 8 weeks of follow-up. These data suggest that social integration can be enhanced with a procedure requiring limited staff intervention.

Functional Skills Training for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

With the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (originally titled the Education for All Handicapped Children Act) and the advent of normalization as a guiding philosophical premise and deinstitutionalization as prevalent public policy in the 1970s, monumental changes in the provision of services to individuals with mental retardation and similar developmental disabilities occurred. Importantly, individuals who might have once been placed in large state operated institutions at birth or shortly thereafter remained living at home and began attending public schools. At school, children with mild mental retardation often were exposed to a simplified version of the regular education curriculum (Heward, 1996). Children with more severe retardation were often exposed to a curriculum that was based on normal child development or a readiness model (Wilcox & Bellamy, 1982). Within the developmental model individuals were taught skills in the order in which they emerged in children without disabilities in the belief that those early skills were prerequisite or necessary for the attainment of skills typically learned by children later. Unfortunately, data collected on the postschool outcomes of individuals with disabilities, including mental retardation and related disabilities, revealed that they were not making transitions to adult life successfully (McDonnell, Wilcox, & Hardman, 1991). There were high rates of unemployment, with those who were employed working less than full time. Most lived with parents or

Increasing functional rehabilitation in acquired brain injury treatment: effective applications of behavioural principles

This paper investigated ways to increase the participation of direct care staff in the functional rehabilitation activities (FRAs) of adults with acquired brain injuries (ABIs). FRAs were rehabilitation agendas written by clinical staff for delivery by paraprofessionals. Increases in FRA completion were believed to be directly related to clinical success. These FRAs had been identified as key components in the rehabilitation programmes of the adults living within the residential facilities. Increases in FRAs were crucial in improving the quality of the rehabilitation programmes of the participants involved. The study observed four residential settings serving adults with ABIs using a multiple baseline design. The treatment approach consisted of public posting of weekly FRA documentation, incorporation of staff input, and reinforcement for documentation of FRAs. The results indicated a positive impact on the participation of staff in all of the residences in the study, consistent with implementation of the treatment package.