TRAINING RESIDENTIAL SUPERVISORS TO PROVIDE FEEDBACK FOR MAINTAINING STAFF TEACHING SKILLS WITH PEOPLE WHO HAVE SEVERE DISABILITIES

We evaluated procedures for training supervisors in a residential setting to provide feedback for maintaining direct-service staff members' teaching skills with people who have severe disabilities. Using classroom-based instruction and on-the-job observation and feedback, 10 supervisors were initially trained to implement teaching programs themselves. The training improved supervisors' teaching skills but was insufficient to improve the quality of feedback they provided to direct-service staff regarding the staff members' teaching skills. Subsequently, classroom-based instruction and on-the-job observation and feedback that targeted supervisors' feedback skills were provided. Following training in provision of feedback, all supervisors met criterion for providing feedback to their staff. Results also indicated that maintenance of teaching skills was greater for direct-service staff whose supervisors had received training in providing feedback relative to staff whose supervisors had not received such training. The need for analysis of other variables that affect maintenance of staff performance, as well as variables that affect other important areas of supervisor performance, is discussed.     

IDENTIFYING WORK PREFERENCES AMONG INDIVIDUALS WITH SEVERE MULTIPLE DISABILITIES PRIOR TO BEGINNING SUPPORTED WORK

We evaluated a prework assessment for predicting work-task preferences among workers with severe multiple disabilities prior to beginning supported work. The assessment involved comparing worker selections from pairs of work tasks drawn from their future job duties. Results of workers' choices once they began their jobs in a publishing company indicated that the assessment predicted tasks that the workers preferred to work on during their job routines. Results are discussed regarding other possible means of determining preferred types of supported work.     

The Relationship of Participation in Sports and Physical Activity to Body Objectification, Instrumentality, and Locus of Control Among Young Women

The primary purposes of this study were to assess the possible relationship of sports participation during high school to body self-objectification, instrumentality, and locus of control, and to explore the possibility that different sports might be differentially related to psychological variables according to the perceived stereotypical masculinity or femininity of the sport. Two studies were reported herein. In the first, using 195 male and female students, we examined perceptions of sports according to emphasis on physical appearance and perceived masculinity/femininity. These findings were used in Study 2, which included 437 college women, to describe sports participation along dimensions of both extent of participation and the nature of the sports in which the individual participated. Extent of participation in physical fitness activity was also assessed. Participation in sports and/or physical activity was associated with higher scores on the body shame subscale of McKinley and Hyde's (1996) Objectified Body Consciousness Scale, which indicates greater internalization of cultural standards of female beauty. Body shame was also related to participation in more "feminine" sports (those focusing more on female appearance). Physical activity was also consistently related to both instrumentality and locus of control. Further research is needed to understand the relationship of sports and physical exercise activities to body self-objectification and other indicators of psychological functioning among women.     

Conceiving of God: Theological arguments and motives in feminist ethics

This paper offers a critical investigation of the theological assumptions that lie within three forms of modern feminist ethics, with a view to challenging feminist ethics to enter the new theological possibilities opened up in postmodernity for the conceiving of god. The first part of the paper considers the conceiving of god in modern feminisms, in which theology becomes ethics. The consequences of this development are considered. The second part of the paper investigates the turn into postmodernity which hears the saying of the death of god and the critique of onto-theology. This disturbance to the foundations of feminist ethics is understood as part of a wider critique of humanism manifest particularly in gender theory. That the end of the modern human subject might allow a conceiving of god through an understanding of the performative is the restored orthodoxy to which the paper points.     

IMPROVING RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT SERVICES: IMPLEMENTATION AND NORM-REFERENCED EVALUATION OF A COMPREHENSIVE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Ensuring effective service delivery by direct-care personnel in institutional living units for persons with developmental disabilities historically has been a difficult process, despite considerable attention from researchers, service providers, and governmental regulatory agencies. In this investigation, we conducted a normative evaluation of the extent and quality of treatment services currently provided in residential living units (Experiment 1) and evaluated a comprehensive management system designed to improve such services (Experiment 2). Results of the first experiment, encompassing 22 living units in three states, indicated that on the average two thirds of observed resident behavior did not involve any therapeutic activity. The results also provided social validity for the criteria used to evaluate the quality of treatment provision based on opinions of mental retardation professionals. Results of the second experiment indicated that a behavioral management program implemented during 23 separate time periods across five living units was accompanied by consistent and durable decreases in resident nontherapeutic activity as well as increases in specifically designated habilitative activity. The results provide support for the successful incorporation of behavioral management technology into human service settings on a large-scale, long-term basis.     

Effects of alcohol abuse and familial alcoholism on physical health in men and women

Detoxified alcoholic men (n = 76) and women (n = 72) and nonalcoholic control men (n = 50) and women (n = 51) were given a structured interview that assessed five categories of physical health: medical history, alcohol-related disorders, trauma history, drug use history, and, for females, female-related disorders. Approximately half the subjects in each group were family history positive for alcoholism. Significant differences between alcoholics and controls were found for all five categories; family history effects were significant for four of the five categories, and sex differences were present in two categories. The results indicate that (a) alcoholics suffer pervasive physical health difficulties, (b) a family history of alcoholism is predictive of health problems in both alcoholics and controls, (c) the effects of alcohol abuse and family history of alcoholism on health appear to be independent and additive, and (d) women may be more "illness prone" than men and exhibit an increased vulnerability to the adverse effects of alcoholism.