A blind woman who is mentally retarded promoting and sharing the occupational engagement of a dependent deaf-blind adolescent
✍ Scribed by Giulio E. Lancioni; Doretta Oliva; Teresa Bartolini
- Book ID
- 101712201
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1990
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 496 KB
- Volume
- 5
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1072-0847
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
A blind woman who is mentally retarded was employed (as peer care-giver) to promote and eventually share the occupational engagement of a deaf-blind adolescent (trainee) who was dependent on physical prompting. A computer-aided program was used to provide objects for the responses and facilitate orientation and mobility. The trainee was also exposed to the computeraided program individually to assess the effects of the program per se. The results showed highly positive changes only in the condition involving the peer care-giver. In this condition, the trainee performed high frequencies of correct responses. Moreover, the care-giver managed to share responding with the trainee. Technical and practical aspects of the findings are discussed.
Low-functioning blind and deaf-blind subjects are mostly passive and sedentary and may engage in self-stimulation or self-injury when no staff supervision is available (Lancioni et al., 1988a;Uslan, 1979). In many institutional settings, staff supervision cannot be provided on an individual basis for prolonged periods of the day. It follows that the opportunities of occupational engagement and mobility for those multi-handicapped subjects may be limited, and, conversely, the degrading aspects of their condition may be dominant.
A computer-aided program has recently been developed in an attempt to reduce this problem (Lancioni et al., 1988a; Lancioni et al., 1988b). The program was aimed at: (a) distributing 'object-means' (i.e. objects that the subjects used for the activities); (b) helping the subjects orienting themselves during activities requiring mobility; and (c) providing reinforcement. The results have been largely positive. Subjects learned to engage independently in activity and mobility. However, it is doubtful that the same program would succeed with