Assessing the validity of a survey for people with disabilities, and examining the relationship between residential staff offering clients clients choices and staff's teaching strategies. This proposed study has two phases. Phase 1 will determine how valid the Core Indicator Survey is at measuring the choices of people with disabilities. The Core Indicator survey is a part of a pilot study in eight states. There is concern whether the instrument is valid. It has been agreed to assess the Core Indicator Survey's validity of the questions on people's choices through a comprehensive choice survey and observational methods. The choice survey will be collected on six residential clients who are offered a low number of choices and six residential clients who receive a high number determined by the answers on the choice survey. Three 6-hour observational sessions in the clients' homes will serve as a validity check for the choice survey. During a fourth observational session, the clients' primary staff will be videotaped while guiding them through three learning tasks. The staff's teaching and clients' task-directed behaviors will be coded to determine whether the staff who offer clients more choices have more effective teaching strategies than the staff who offer clients a few choices. The reasoning behind this hypothesis is that offering appropriate choices and some effective.
