Operant approaches to group therapy in a school for handicapped children.

In order to determine the effectiveness of operant approaches to group therapy with children with cerebral palsy or mental retardation, four boys aged between 4 years 10 months and 5 years 7 months were given a total of 23 twice-weekly 30-minute treatment sessions. After treatment there was considerably improvement in the children's attention-to-tasks and they showed some increase in social interactions, though to a lesser degree. Teacher ratings also showed some improvement in classroom behavior.