This article reports findings from a comprehensive examination of the self-determination of 408 adults with mental retardation. Analysis of variance identified severity of disability, current living arrangement, and primary caregiver status as predictive of differences in self-determination in this population. (Author/DB)

Responses to interview questions regarding self-determination opportunities, outcomes, and importance were compared across 21 adults with developmental disabilities and 20 advocates. Self-determination skills in the areas of problem solving, assertiveness, decision making, and goal setting were also addressed. Areas of agreement and disagreement…

Adults with mental retardation (n=392) involved in self-advocacy groups completed the Life Choices Survey. Findings indicated that this group indicated more choice opportunities than most adults with mental retardation and that total choice availability varied with level of disability and type of living arrangement but not by age or gender.…

This article describes the development and structure of a self-advocacy training program, the Self-Advocacy Leadership Training Institute, to help individuals with disabilities to exercise choice in vocational rehabilitation services and in other areas of life. A pilot program and two institutes were conducted, resulting in the training of 36…

A project to promote self-determination for young people with autism is described. Project activities included the development and field-testing of a curriculum for high school students with autism to learn self- and life-knowledge skills. Field testing suggested that the curriculum increased knowledge and self-determination skills in students…

This article describes the development of training materials for individuals with developmental disabilities and their families and discusses statewide systems efforts to promote self-determination. The materials, developed by Florida agencies, are designed to enable individuals and family members to envision and realize choice, inclusion, and…

This article describes an exploratory analysis of self-determination for individuals with disabilities and factors that promote or inhibit their self-determination. Analysis of a series of focus groups and semistructured interviews identifies typical characteristics of self-determined individuals, revealing that the availability of financial…

This paper examines the use of facilitated communication (FC) with individuals having communication disorders, in the context of the research on literacy development and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) methodologies. (Author/DB)

This case study describes an intervention program with a 20-month-old hearing child with deaf parents. The child was diagnosed as having a significant delay in both spoken and sign language. A home-based intervention program resulted in the child's increased use of sign and spoken vocabulary and the mother's improved interaction style. (Author/DB)

This study reports on the development and initial testing of the Preschool Speech Intelligibility Measure (PSIM), a single-word, multiple-choice intelligibility measure. The PSIM was adapted from the Assessment of Intelligibility of Dysarthric Speech and is designed to plot changes in children's intelligibility across time. (Author)

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a training manual developed for speech-language pathologists for providing education and early detection of oral health problems secondary to smokeless tobacco use. With the addition of a clinical training module, the manual provided a method for expansion of the role of speech-language pathologists in…

This paper summarizes selected findings on approaches to increasing the rate of communicatively appropriate responses in augmentative and alternative communication. Six approaches--efficient keyboard layouts, reduced keys keyboards, Minspeak with Words Strategy, enlarged keys keyboards, abbreviation expansion, and lexical prediction--are reviewed…

An examination of the extent to which scores on the Stuttering Severity Instrument (SSI) for Children and Adults, Third Edition, accurately reflect 10 judges' observations of stuttering behaviors found that SSI scores obscured the wide range of judges' raw counts and did not accurately reflect the observational data from which they were derived.…

An interview with Helen B. Landgarten, a pioneer in art psychotherapy, addresses how she came to work in this field, her training, her experience with Jungian therapy, current approaches to training art therapists, her own painting, and the role of the American Art Therapy Association today. (DB)

This case study describes three years of art therapy with a boy (age seven at the start) with borderline psychotic disorder. Changing themes over course of therapy are discussed and examples of child's work are included. Therapy was terminated after child had worked out fears and assumed an identity in which he could relate to peers in a normal…