Fire Safety Skills Training for Individuals with Severe and Profound Mental Retardation
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Abstract
The statistics surrounding fire injury and death in the United States are staggering.
Literature concerning fire safety has focused largely on children, but persons with mental
retardation also are in need of fire safety training as they are highly vulnerable to fire injury
and death. The purpose of this research was to evaluate behavioral skills training
procedures for teaching individuals with severe and profound mental retardation to exit
their residence upon hearing a smoke detector. Fire safety skills training involved giving
instructions, modeling, prompting, and corrective feedback. Assessments took place in the
participants' group homes with the participants unaware that an assessment was taking
place. Following training, it was anticipated that the participants would be able to initiate
exiting behaviors within 10 seconds following the activation of a smoke detector and exit
the building within 30 seconds of initiating exiting behaviors. The results showed that one
participant out of seven met these criteria following training. However, data gathered on
the level of prompts needed for participants to exit the building showed that some
individuals exited the building with a less intrusive level of prompting from staff.