Wes Williams

Quality of Life as Context for Planning and Evaluation of Services for People with Disabilities

Quality of life has become a dominant theme in planning and evaluating services for people with disabilities. This article reviews definitions of quality of life, explores the concept from the perspective of the optimal theory of personal well-being, and surveys the research on the concept and its implications for planning and evaluating services. This article explores the subjective nature of life quality, particularly for people with disabilities, and relates the concept to both cultural norms and universal human values and needs. Each person experiences life, and disability, in unique ways. Practitioners need to consider quality-of-life issues as a context in planning and evaluating quality services.

Effects of Classroom Public Transportation Instruction on Generalization to the Natural Environment

A severely handicapped 20-year-old woman in a public school setting was taught to ride the city bus. It was determined that bus-riding skills would facilitate access to environments the woman was expected to occupy after public school services were terminated. Training was conducted in both the classroom and the natural environment. During classroom instruction, a simulated setting, consisting of chairs in rows, a coin box, a buzzer, boards to represent the curb and sidewalk edges, and slides were utilized. The slides were used to indicate the point of bus departure. During natural environment instruction, training occurred on actual buses. Behaviors were divided into skill clusters of bus boarding and bus departing. Each of these clusters was taught first in the classroom with generalization probes and then in the natural environment. Results were shown in a multiple baseline design. They indicated that skills acquired in the classroom, for both bus boarding and bus departing, generalized only minimally to the natural environment. They were not demonstrated in the natural environment until natural environment training was provided.

Motoric Factors Influencing the Selection of Vocabulary for Sign Production Programs

Motoric factors that should be considered in selecting signs to teach handicapped learners are reviewed and discussed. They are grouped into three categories: prehension movement patterns, unilateral/bilateral movement patterns, and combinations of successive actions, with a fourth set included of less objectively definable factors involved in motor planning. Implications of the reviewed information relative to assessment and intervention conclude the article.

Selecting Signs for the Formulation of an Augmentative Communicative Modality.

This article reviews literature describing guidelines for selecting 1) signing as an augmentative communication mode and 2) initial signs to teach severely handicapped learners. A review of the literature indicates that numerous guidelines are available, and although they appear to have face validity, few have received empirical scrutiny. Criteria are inconsistently applied across the literature. Each identified criterion pertinent to selecting initial signs is discussed, based on available theoretical positions and data. Recommendations are made for systematic evaluation of identified criteria.

Community Integration in Vermont.

The Center for Developmental Disabilities, a University Affiliated Facility Satellite, at the University of Vermont, has had a major role in facilitating community integration throughout the state. This article describes the development and implementation of a statewide interdisciplinary model for providing special education to learners with severe disabilities and the Centers role in facilitating systems change in early special education, recreation/leisure opportunities, vocational services, and family support.

Planning for Inclusion: A Practical Process.

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Facilitating Systems Change for the Severely Handicapped: Secondary and Adult Services.

Four separate surveys were conducted in a small rural northeastern state to determine the status of secondary and adult services and service provider training needs. Secondary level special education service providers, vocational rehabilitation counselors, adult developmental disabilities service providers, and adult prevocational/vocational service facilities were surveyed. Overall results of the four surveys indicated that there was a need to further develop services and insure that specific agencies are responsible for those services, develop secondary and adult community-based programs that lead towards increased independence in living and vocational situations, provide comprehensive inservice training and technical assistance to adult service providers, delineate competencies needed to be a community mental retardation professional, develop comprehensive employment options (sheltered, transitional, and competitive), improve coordination and cooperation among agencies providing services, and determine exit criteria for movement through the service systems so that severely handicapped individuals can systematically progress to the least restrictive vocational and living arrangements possible.

Teacher Modeling and Student Imitation: An Instructional Procedure and Teacher Competency

This paper discusses the advantages of using modeling as an instructional procedure to teach severely handicapped students to imitate. A discussion of the process of teaching severely handicapped students to imitate is also included. The writers also propose that modeling as an instructional procedure for teaching non-imitative students to imitate be considered a crucial instructional competency for teachers of severely handicapped students.

A Family Centered, Collaborative Introduction to Developmental Disabilities: Experiential Learning for Undergraduates

In this article, we describe the emergence of the support model of services for persons with developmental disabilities. A rationale is presented for persons with developmental disabilities, their families, and university faculty members collaboratively to plan and deliver an introductory undergraduate course in developmental disabilities congruent with the support model. The content and format of a collaboratively planned course that has been taught and revised for the past 7 years are delineated. The major themes of the course include: the family-centered philosophy, respect for the values and strengths of individuals with developmental disabilities and their families, collaborative skills, and knowledge of life span issues and needs. A primary vehicle for teaching the themes is assigning hypothetical babies with severe developmental disabilities to teams of students that must then identify and meet their childs and familys needs from birth into adulthood. Course outcomes, both expected and unexpected, are presented.