The normalization movement grew out of concern about potential adverse effects of placing people with mental retardation in large congregate care facilities. The move toward integrated community living for people with mental retardation has increased since the normalization principle was introduced conflicting results emanated from early studies of residential features, some indicating the nature of the residence made little difference in client outcome while others suggested the opposite. Interactions between program philosophy, staff characteristics, resident characteristics, and features of physical settings appear to influence outcome. During the immediately preceding grant period (HD-R0125150) we investigated the relation between physical features of residential architecture and behavior of residents with retardation in those buildings, which varied in their perceived homelikeness. In addition, we examined physical features of residential settings judged by professionals, family members, architects and consumers with disabilities, to be more or less homelike. Differences were found in architectural features of buildings perceived to be more or less homelike, and behavior of the people with mental retardation residing there. Judgments by architects, disabilities professionals, architects and people with disabilities were highly correlated. Possible causal linkages between architecture, staff member's behavior and client outcome are not clear.
The aims for the proposed grant period are to evaluate indirect architectural prostheses in residential architecture for people with mental retardation and their interaction with staff and program characteristics. Study 1 will examine the relations between (a) staff and program characteristics and (b) effects of physical architectural features on (c) behavior of people with retardation and staff in group homes varying in homelikeness. Study 2 will investigate perceptions and expectations by several groups of observers using videotaped vignettes of residents with similar intellectual and adaptive functioning and similar behavior characteristics (i.e., behavior problems or no behavior problems), which were videotaped in more homelike and more institutional settings, as test stimuli. The goal is to clarify the relations between architectural features, staff behavior, and behavioral outcome for residents with mental retardation.
| Egli, Mark; Feurer, Irene; Roper, Todd et al. (2002) The role of residential homelikeness in promoting community participation by adults with mental retardation. Res Dev Disabil 23:179-90 |
| Egli, M; Roper, T; Feurer, I et al. (1999) Architectural acoustics in residences for adults with mental retardation and its relation to perceived homelikeness. Am J Ment Retard 104:53-66 |
| Thompson, T; Robinson, J; Dietrich, M et al. (1996) Interdependence of architectural features and program variables in community residences for people with mental retardation. Am J Ment Retard 101:315-27 |
| Thompson, T; Robinson, J; Dietrich, M et al. (1996) Architectural features and perceptions of community residences for people with mental retardation. Am J Ment Retard 101:292-314 |
