Within the field of psychiatric rehabilitation, a growing body of evidence suggests the cognitive deficits associated with schizophrenia can exert a significant impact on an individual's rehabilitative potential. In this report we describe two studies centering around improvements in cognitive skills with multiply-impaired individuals with psychiatric disabilities residing in a rehabilitation program based on Paul and Lentz' (1977) social learning approach. In the first study, we compared improvements in reading and mathematics skills of two groups of inpatients over a nine-month period; one group was of lower functioning individuals seen in academicallyoriented shaping classes, the other was a higher functioning group seen in more traditional academic classes. This study found subjects in shaping classes to demonstrate significant improvements in both basic reading and mathematics skills, while participants in the traditional classes made modest gain in reading skills only. In the second study, we investigated the relationship between academic skills, self-care skills and on-ward behavior of a group of individuals with pervasive psychiatric disabilities, who received six to eight academically-oriented shaping classes per week, over a twenty month period. We found these individuals to demonstrate continued improvements in both reading and mathematics skills, while showing a more gradual reduction of problematic behaviors. Improved self-care skills, once attained, were exhibited at a relatively steady rate over the twenty month period. Correlations found no significant relationships between improved academic skills, self-care skills and on-ward behavior. These results support the conclusion that persons with multiple impairments can benefit from learning-based procedures.

The nutritional effects of high-fat diets have been extensively studied in laboratory animals, but as yet few experiments have examined the feeding response of animals to newly developed fat substitutes. The present study used commercially available no-fat (0% fat, 92% carbohydrate) and high-fat (41% fat, 54% carbohydrate) cake to determine the effects of fat substitutes on food preference and caloric intake in rats. The first experiment showed that nondeprived rats found the high-fat and no-fat cakes equally palatable and highly preferred to lab chow. Food deprived rats, however, preferred the high-fat cake to the no-fat cake, which may be related to its higher caloric density. In the second experiment, rats fed high-fat cake, in addition to chow, for 30 days consumed more calories and gained more weight than did rats fed no-fat cake and chow. The no-fat cake group, however, overate a n d gained more weight than chow-only controls. The hyperphagic response to the no-fat cake can be attributed to its carbohydrate content, moisture, and high palatability. Thus, removing fat from the cake reduced, but did not eliminate, its obesity-promoting effect. Obviously, low-fat foods must be consumed in moderation if used for weight control. (OBESITY RESEARCH 1993;1:173-178)