Independent and social play among profoundly mentally retarded adults: training, maintenance, generalization, and long-term follow-up.
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Play skills were taught to eight profoundly mentally retarded adults in two interrelated experiments. In Experiment 1, a multiple baseline across subjects design was used to assess the efficacy of verbal and physical prompts on independent play. In Experiment 2, the same subjects and experimental procedures were used to develop social play. Verbal prompting and graduated physical guidance procedures were found to be effective in substantially increasing independent play in Experiment 1 and social play in Experiment 2. Positive changes were also observed in collateral behaviors. Inappropriate play decreased slightly and stereotypy decreased to very low levels. Social interaction increased substantially in Experiment 2 when social play was targeted but little change was observed in Experiment 1 when only independent play was targeted. Treatment gains were maintained for 26 weeks in Experiment 1 and 10 weeks in Experiment 2. In addition, the treatment gains were generalized across subjects and settings in Experiment 2. Finally, regular follow-up checks showed that independent and social play remained in the repertoire of the subjects for 12 months following the termination of programmed maintenance. (+info)
Psychiatric nurse as therapist.
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Under supervision five nurse-therapists have treated phobic patients as successfully as have psychiatrists and psychologists using similar psychological treatments in comparable psychiatric populations. Nurses have also had good results in other neurotic disorders. Intensive training is required. Nurse-therapists find their work rewarding, but the present Salmon gradings make no provision for their advancement should they retain their clinical function. Results suggest that the use of selected psychiatric nurses as skilled therapists can ease the current critical shortage of treatment personnel in psychiatry. (+info)
Baby stealing.
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Analysis of 13 cases of baby stealing by women distinguished four groups of cases. (1) Girls of subnormal intelligence, who stole a baby to play with. (2) Schizophrenic patients, whose offence was motivated by delusional ideas. (3) Psychopathic personalities, characterized by a previous history of delinquency, hysterical personality traits, and a preoccupation with their desire to have children. Their baby stealing seemed motivated by an attempt to compensate for their emotional deprivation, and they usually stole children whom they had previously helped to care for. (4) A "manipulative" group with a milder degree of personality disorder, in whom the motive for baby stealing was an attempt to influence a man by whom they had become pregnant and with whom their relationship was insecure. The offence was precipitated by a crisis such as a miscarriage or the threat of desertion. These women presented the stolen baby to their partner pretending that the child was his.Baby stealing seems usually to be an attempt to compensate for emotional deprivation or frustrated maternal feelings, and a real or imaginary miscarriage may be a predisposing or precipitating factor. The offence rarely seems premediated, though there was evidence of previous planning in some cases, particularly in the manipulative group. The stolen babies were well cared for and were usually quickly recovered. (+info)