Behavioral treatment of psychosomatic complaints of mentally retarded adults

Three mildly mentally retarded adults were treated for psychosomatic complaints using a multiple-baseline format across types of behavior and therapists. Also, social appropriate behavior incompatible with the target behavior was assessed. Subjects were matched on age, sex, and intellectual level with persons not considered to have this problem in order to establish the clinical significance in frequency of psychosomatic complaints. Additionally, baseline, treatment, and follow-up sessions were rated on the frequency of psychosomatic complaints by 10 adults from the community. Stomachache, headache, and multiple physical complaints were treated with a combination of token reinforcement, performance feedback, instructions, and modeling. Frequencies of the target behavior were decreased to near zero and maintained at that level during follow-up, and subjects were rated in the normal range of performance on both social validation criteria. Also, subjects' performance on adaptive behavior incompatible with psychosomatic complaints was improved.