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Care providers within human services organizations have many job responsibilities and performance expectations. In the present study, we conducted social validity assessment with 78 care providers concerning their attitudes and opinions about behavior data recording with adults who had intellectual disability and lived in community group homes. Specifically, the care providers responded to a written questionnaire that inquired about the practicality, training/supervision, and value of behavior data recording in the context of service delivery. Results indicated generally high approval of behavior data recording practices, purposes, and approaches to training. We discuss implications of these findings for implementing data recording by care providers and the contribution of social validity assessment to training and performance management within human services organizations.

A meaningful curriculum is one that is individualized, inclusive of the individual’s unique needs and interests, and focused on building independence in current and future environments. A meaningful curriculum addresses an individual’s needs and prioritizes instructional programs based on what is, potentially, most important to their lives and not simply a somewhat arbitrary list of isolated skills. A meaningful curriculum is one that puts as much emphasis on skill acquisition outside of the classroom as it does on skill acquisition within the classroom or school. Unfortunately, the use of meaningful curricula to educate autistic students would seem to be something of a rarity, which may help to explain the consistently poor outcomes that individuals with autism and related disorders experience in adulthood. In this article, the authors make recommendations that may help practitioners to mitigate these outcomes by providing instruction in curricula that place a focus on adaptive behavior skills, the intersection of the individual, respectful intervention, and an emphasis on these important topics beginning in preschool, and increasing in importance and complexity across the lifespan.

We designed and distributed a survey that assessed safety concerns experienced by direct service providers (DSPs) (N = 59) of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in community-based group homes at a single human services organization. Results indicated relatively few safety concerns among the respondents from a list of 25 survey statements. Possible influences on the findings are presented such as safety training of the DSPs, comprehensive safety guidelines in place at the group homes, and conditions occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. Current safety research in IDD supports the necessity of assessment to inform prevention and intervention strategies.

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