70
JERRY
W.
WILLIS,
BETTY
MORRIS
AND
JEANE
CROWDER
The apparent success
of
this program must be contrasted with the
4
or
more
years
of
failure these children had experienced in regular classes. In addition,
although the school had a remedial reading program, most of the students in this
study were ineligible because their scores were
so
low it was felt the program would
be ineffective. The results obtained through the work of eighth-grade students
trained for
2
hours prior to the beginning of the program indicate that techniques
are available that show promise to help these children.
Jefferson County Dept.
of
Health
1912
Eighth Ave.
P.
0.
Box
2646
Birmingham, Ala.
35202
REFERENCES
HEWETT, F. Teaching reading to an autistic boy through operant conditioning.
The
Reading
Teacher,
1964,
17,
613-618.
LIBAW,
F.,
BERRRS,
F.,
&
COLICMAN,
J.
C.
Evaluating the treatment
of
learning difficulties.
N.
J.
Long,
W.
C. Morse, and
R.
Newman (Eds.),
Conflict
in
the classroom.
Belmont, Calif.: Wads-
worth Publishing,
1965,
pp.
505-508.
STAATS, A., MINKE,
K.,
&
BUTTS,
P.
A token reinforcement remedial reading program administered
by black therapy-technicians
to
problem black children.
Behavior Therapy,
1970,1,331-363.
DESCRIPTION AND EVALUATION
OF
GROUP-WORK TRAINING
FOR
NONPROFESSIONAL AIDES IN A SCHOOL
blENTAL HEALTH PROGRAM'
DAVID
L.
TERRELL,
SPENCER
A. MCWILLIAMS, AND EMORY
L.
COWEN
University
of
Rochester2
The past decade has witnessed
a
remarkable upsurge in the use of nonpro-
fessionals in human service activities (Arnhoff, Rubenstein,
&
Speisman,
1969;
Cowen,
1967;
Ewalt,
1967;
Grosser, Henry
&
Kelly,
1969;
Sobey,
1970),
a reflection
of both dire shortages in existing professional manpower and growing demand
for human service. Two striking attributes
of
this development are the breadth
and flexibility
of
programs thus far undertaken. The movement initially motivated
by the perception of serious and unmet social need has been a springboard
for
new,
and prospectively innovative, solutions to longstanding social problems (Reiff
&
Riessman,
1965;
Zax
&
Cowen,
1972).
Specific programs, for example those that have used nonprofessional human
service aides as group workers (Briggs,
1963;
Christmas,
1966;
Fishman, Denham,
Levine
&
Shatz,
1969;
Grant,
1966;
MacLennan and Klein,
1966;
Mitchell and
Terrell,
1969),
indicate that potentially they have much to offer in this capacity,
both because group approaches expand the reach
of
helping services and because
'This research was supported by
NIMH
grant
MH-11820-02
from the Pilots and Special Training
Branch, the Monroe City-County Youth
Board,
and the School Districts of the City
of
Rochester,
Ilush-Henrietta, Fairport, and West Irondequoit,
N.
y.
This support is acknowledged gratefully.
ZD.
L.
T.
is a doctoral candidate and
E.
L.
C.
is
a Professor of Psychology.
S.
A. McW, is now an
hssistant Professor
of
Psychology at the University of Arizona,