ABSTRACT
Community-based adult-day-care centers are an alternative to institutional care, an alternative that can preserve self-maintenance and family-centered life. By 1990, there were more than 3,000 of them in the United States. Data were collected on the adult-day-care staff using four behavioral observation scales focusing on task analysis, cueing, contracting, and reinforcement. After pretest data were collected, the adult-day-care staff took part in orientation and training. The training program consisted of 15 sessions, the first 10 for training and the last 5 for single-case evaluations of training. This report focuses on the 10 training sessions. The training focused on staff and client skills rather than on problems; therefore, it used reinforcement without punishment. The training program taught adult-day-care staff skills sufficient to bring about positive behavior change in their clients. Although many training programs have done that, this one demonstrated that caregiver training can be conducted during working hours in the adult-day-care setting.
