Social validation of decelerative (punishment) procedures by special educators of severely handicapped students

Ratings on the acceptability, intrusiveness, restrictiveness, and efficacy of 18 commonly used interventions for decelerating behaviors were obtained from 58 special educators of students with severe handicaps. Results indicated that consensually high and low mean ratings were obtained for restrictiveness, intrusiveness, and acceptability. Ratings of efficacy, however, were generally neither consensually high nor low, and demonstrated lower variability across the 18 interventions, and lower reliability across raters than did ratings on the other three dimensions. Additionally, ratings of restrictiveness were negatively correlated with ratings of acceptability, ratings of intrusiveness and restrictiveness were positively correlated, and ratings of acceptability and efficacy were positively correlated. We interpreted these results as suggesting that: (a) special educators may not be certain of the efficacy of interventions they use, despite previously reported use in classrooms, and (b) the constructs of restrictiveness and intrusiveness may not have discriminant validity at present. Implications for ongoing training for special educators were discussed.