Personal health training and the severely handicapped: a curriculum based research investigation

Project TRANSITION studied, as part of a three year field initiated research project, the effect of training selected personal health skills and their relationship to adaptive behavior. The subjects were moderately, severely, and profoundly retarded individuals residing in a state-operated developmental center. Eighty-eight subjects were selected and then randomly assigned to one of four experimental groups and participated in a 14-week training program. To test the effects of the training, valid and reliable curriculum-embedded tests were developed and used. A curriculum-embedded test uses the material to be learned as the basis for assessing the degree to which the material has been learned. These tests were designed to measure and monitor subjects' independent ability to perform each task analyzed skill. The Adaptive Behavior Scale was used to measure changes in adaptive behavior. Results of the personal health skill testing yielded significant group differences on the independent indices developed for the Project. No meaningful significant differences were found in adaptive behavior. The data indicated that the developed curriculum and scoring system was effectively used to train and monitor selected independent personal health skills of the severely mentally retarded adults in this study.