In a hospital training unit for severely mentally handicapped adults, alternative methods of staff organization, Room Management (RM) and Small Groups (SG) were experimentally evaluated. Both procedures were found to be equivalent in ensuring that trainees had materials available to them, in promoting on-task behaviour and staff trainee interaction and minimizing staff-staff interaction. Group engagement was significantly higher during the SG condition. Room Management was nevertheless significantly more successful in facilitating individual training than the SG arrangement, trainees receiving four times more individual training during RM than SG.The implications of these results for the appropriate use of training staff are discussed. The use of group engagement as a dependent variable is critically evaluated.

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ABSTRACT. Seven hundred and sixty‐eight Social Training Achievement Records were collected independently in two settings during routine assessment of mentally handicapped people, mostly adults in hospital. All scales and total scores were highly internally consistent. Factor analysis on one sample yielded two factors named General Adaptive Behaviour and Community and Equipment Skills. This factor structure was replicated on the second sample. This factor solution is highly similar to that reported for the Adaptive Behavior Scale (Nihira, 1976). Two new scales were derived on the basis of these factor analyses which were also highly internally consistent. Parallel forms of these scales were also satisfactorily developed. Total scores and scores on the two new scales were adequate in routine clinical practice and showed good concurrent and criterion group validities. Reliabilities of individual items were less satisfactory. Suggestions for future developments of this scale are made.

ABSTRACT. This study extends an operant methodology for the analysis of variables which control aberrant responses displayed by mentally handicapped people. The proportion of time spent in individual, stereotyped topographies by three profoundly mentally handicapped subjects was observed by momentary time‐sampling whilst they were repeatedly exposed to four analogue environments: Alone, Social Disapproval, Academic Demand and Unstructured Play. Two of the three subjects showed replicable effects of the analogue environments. One subject showed evidence of an interaction between stereotyped topography and type of analogue environment. This study shows that the operant methodology of Iwata et al. (1982), originally developed with self injurious responses, can be successfully refined and extended to the analysis of a wider range of aberrant topographies.