Use of a Self‐recording and Supervision Program to Change Institutional Staff Behavior

Abstract

The use of a self-recording and supervision program to increase interactions between direct care staff and profoundly retarded persons in a state residential facility was investigated. Following baseline, staff were provided with instructions regarding what to self-record, criteria for how many interactions to record, and a prepared card on which to make the recordings. Throughout the study, the staff supervisor monitored intermittently staff-client interactions. Observations indicated that when the staff recorded their interactions with clients in a loosely structured dayroom setting, the rate of interactions increased noticeably for each staff person. Behavioral ecology measures indicated that other staff responsibilities, such as maintaining the cleanliness of residents and the physical area, were not affected detrimentally when social interactions increased and actually showed small improvements. Additionally, small decreases in resident self-stimulatory and disruptive/aggressive behaviors occurred when the rate of social interactions from staff persons increased. Follow-up measures indicated that the rate of staff self-recording was variable, but when staff did self-record, the increased rate of staff-client interactions maintained.

A Supervision Program for Increasing Functional Activities for Severely Handicapped Students in a Residential Setting

“…The first behavioral study in this area reported the positive effects of instructing staff to implement behavioral treatment procedures (Ayllon & Michael, 1959). More recendy, methods used to change staff behavior have included public notices (Greene, Willis, Levy, & Bailey, 1978), contingent money (Pommer & Streedback, 1974), behavioral lotteries (Iwata, Bailey, Brown, Foshee, & Alpern, 1976), and supervision and self-management (Burg, Reid, & Lattimore, 1979;Burgio, Whitman, & Reid, 1983;Montegar, Reid, Madsen, & Ewell, 1977). Ivancic, Reid, Iwata, Faw, and Page (1981) evaluated a program involving brief in-service training, supervisory prompts, and feedback.…”

A Participative Management Approach for Improving Direct‐care Staff Performance in an Institutional Setting

“…Gladstone and Sherman (1975) maintained that systems that include corrective feedback from management personnel are expensive because of the amount of pro-37 1983, 16, 37-53 NUMBER I (SPRING 1983) fessional time involved in their implementation. Recently, researchers have advocated potential advantages of participative management procedures for enhancing staff performance (Gladstone & Sherman, 1975;Burg et al, 1979). They have pointed out that if staff could acquire skills that would assist them in managing their own work-related behaviors in the absence of supervisory personnel, less professional time and financial investment might be required to affect desired behavior changes (Gladstone & Sherman, 1975).…”

Improving Residential Treatment Services: Implementation and Norm‐referenced Evaluation of a Comprehensive Management System

“…It is often easier to effect changes in resident behavior during a relatively brieftime period than during more extended time blocks (Reid, Parsons, & Green, 1989, chap. 5 (Burg et al, 1979;Burgio et al, 1983;Iwata et al, 1976). Measures of staff and resident behavior are usually necessary to demonstrate clearly a functional relationship between the two sets of variables.…”

“…Christian, 1983). Relatedly, the long-term effectiveness of interventions has been addressed infrequently, with only a few studies (e.g., Burg, Reid, & Lattimore, 1979;Coles & Blunden, 1981;Dyer et al, 1984) (Grossman, 1983). All residents were ambulatory and the majority were over 18 years of age.…”