Role reversals: an analysis of therapeutic effects achieved with disruptive boys during their appointments as peer monitors

Goals

A system for including the peer group as a source of behavior change.

Compliance of children with moderate to severe intellectual disability to treadmill walking: a pilot study

BACKGROUND

Individuals with Intellectual Disability (ID) exhibit reduced levels of compliance to exercise, including treadmill walking. The purpose of this study was to measure the effects of several training conditions on compliance to participation in treadmill walking of children with moderate to severe ID.

METHOD

Criteria for compliance were the averaged number of times participants attempted to discontinue walking during two 5-min exercise sessions of treadmill walking at an intensity of 65-75% of predicted maximal HR. Fifteen children aged 5-11 with moderate to severe ID participated in the study. Training conditions were (a) close supervisor's position, (b) distant supervisor's position, (c) positive reinforcement, and (d) paired modeling.

RESULTS

General linear mixed model statistics revealed significant differences in favor of the paired modeling and positive reinforcement compared to the other conditions. Leaning forward was the most frequent type of participants' attempt to stop exercising.

CONCLUSIONS

Paired modeling and positive reinforcement should be considered within treadmill training programs for children with moderate to severe ID.

Developmental issues in social-skills assessment and intervention with children and adolescents

In recent years, social-skills training has become an increasingly common intervention. Recipients of skill training programs have included children of all ages as well as adults, yet relatively few systematic attempts have been made to incorporate developmental considerations into program design and evaluation. Developmental research indicates that significant normative changes take place during the preschool, grade school, and adolescent years in domains such as the complexity of children's social reasoning, the focus and duration of their peer interactions, the nature of peer-approved (and disapproved) behaviors, the organization of the peer group, and the extent and nature of peer influence. Although a full understanding of the impact that these developmental changes may have on the effectiveness of various social-skills interventions awaits future research, the potential implications are numerous. In this article, developmental changes in children's peer relationships are reviewed. The implications that these changes may have for the assessment of social skills, for the design of skill training programs, and for future research are discussed.

Fading teacher prompts from peer-initiation interventions for young children with disabilities

This study examined a system for fading teacher prompts to children who served as peers in peer-initiation interventions for young children with disabilities. A teacher taught peers to direct social initiations to children with disabilities, provided verbal prompts for those initiations, and introduced a system that provided peers with visual feedback about the social interactions of the children with disabilities. She then systematically withdrew the verbal prompts to peers, and subsequently faded the visual feedback system. Peer initiations increased when the intervention began and resulted in increases in social interaction for the children with disabilities. As the teacher systematically faded the prompts and visual feedback to the peers, social interaction continued at the levels found during intervention and was maintained during a short maintenance period.

Evaluation of the generalized effects of a peer-training procedure with moderately retarded adolescents

The use of peer-training procedures by moderately mentally retarded adolescents was evaluated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, 2 students received instruction on peer-training skills to teach a vocational task to 7 classmates. Following instruction, both peer trainers were successful in teaching their classmates to perform the target task and a second untrained (generalization) task. In Experiment 2, 1 peer trainer taught 3 peers to use picture prompts to complete one or two complex vocational tasks. Following instruction by the peer trainer, the trainees independently used novel pictures on novel tasks. The results of both experiments indicate that peer training with moderately handicapped students can be an effective instructional procedure, with generalization occurring for both the trainers (Experiment 1) and the trainees (Experiment 2).

A comparison of two intervention roles: peer monitor and point earner

Two fifth-grade students' high levels of off-task and disruptive behavior decreased rapidly during an intervention in which they were appointed peer monitors or point earners. The children worked in dyads in which one child served as a peer monitor and the other child earned points from his or her monitor for good behavior. Points were accumulated as part of a group contingency. We introduced the two appointments in an independent math period and alternated the appointments across days. The peer monitor and point earner roles, when alternated on an every-other-day basis, were equally effective in reducing the students' inappropriate behavior. Furthermore, their behavior during intervention fell well within the range of inappropriate behavior levels exhibited by classmates. The speed with which both students completed their math problems increased during both appointments. The accuracy of their academic work, however, varied; one student improved slightly and the other student decreased slightly in accuracy.