ABSTRACT
In the past 100 years, a wide variety of treatments have been used with individuals who have developmental disabilities. Until the 1960s, people with mental retardation and other disabilities were simply left untreated or were “warehoused” in large institutions. In the mid-1960s, some very early applications of behavior modification came on the scene and researchers and practitioners suddenly thought they had a magic cure for retardation. A great deal of good work was done using these early, rather primitive procedures, but there were abuses as well (Bailey & Burch, 2005). Subsequently, an explosion of basic and applied research occurred and continues to this day. Developmentally disabled individuals, through their participation in thousands of studies, have given us a wealth of information about the effectiveness of specific training procedures. We now know how to apply procedures that work with a wide range of behavior problems from severe self-injurious behaviors to methods of training appropriate community and work behaviors.
“Behavior analysts by the thousands work with developmentally disabled individuals in a wide variety of settings and there is a constant need for their services.”
