Institutional reform and adaptive functioning of mentally retarded persons: a field experiment

The effectiveness of institutional reform was examined in a one-year field experiment. Institutionalized residents were randomly assigned to live in either 15 new residences designed to be more normalizing or in 14 older institutional buildings designed for more custodial care. Results indicated that: (a) the physical and social aspects of the new residences were more normalizing, (b) the adaptive functioning of residents in the new residences was higher after a year's time, and (c) the social aspects of normalizing environments were the best predictors of higher adaptive functioning.