RESUMO
The expertise of speech pathologists and occupational therapists was combined to compare the relative effectiveness of an operant approach, a modified sensory integrative approach, and a combination of both methods in eliciting vocalization on other developmental skills on a sample of 27 profoundly retarded, minimally vocal, institutionalized adults. The combined results indicated that the therapy programs promoted significant gains in frequency of eye contact, frequency of vocalization, and quality of postural adaptation. There were no differences in the effects of the respective therapies. The fact that the more controversial sensory integrative procedures elicited comparable gains when compared with the more widely recognized operant method lends credence to the viability of sensory integrative methods.
Assuntos
Condicionamento Operante , Deficiência Intelectual/reabilitação , Desenvolvimento da Linguagem , Estimulação Física , Adulto , Estudos de Avaliação como Assunto , Humanos , Transtornos da Linguagem/reabilitação , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Destreza Motora , Estimulação Física/métodos , Comportamento VerbalRESUMO
Sensory integration, operant and combined therapies were used with 27 profoundly retarded, marginally vocal clients. The sensory integration and combined methods yielded significant increases in rate of vocalizations. The operant techniques also increased rate of vocalizations but the gains were more variable than for the sensory integration procedure and they were positively and highly correlated with pretest rates of vocalization. It appears that sensory integration methods can be an effective method for elicting vocalizations when such behaviors are too infrequent for operant techniques.