Basic Concepts Video Series

The Basic Concepts video series are staff development tools that contain everything professionals need to know to help individuals with disabilities live with independence. The series are used world-wide for group orientation, as training refreshers, and as individualized, self-paced learning tools.

​

Basic Concepts comprises ten films that address active treatment and habilitation principles.

 

Orientation to Developmental Disabilities
Provides a frame of reference for understanding active treatment and habilitation services. Covers history of treatment, current teaching practices, and the pitfalls of thinking negatively about the potential of people with disabilities (self-fulfilling prophecy).

 

The Active Treatment Process
Provides a complete description of the habilitation process, including assessment, program training, implementation and review.

 

Teamwork
Assists staff to understand and contribute to a healthy team process by covering teamwork, functional versus dysfunctional teams, and group participation skills.

 

Maintaining a Humane Environment
Provides staff with a basis for making day-to-day decisions using the principles of reasonable accommodation, normalization, protection from harm, and least restrictive alternative.

 

Assuring Individual Rights
Discusses the rights to grow and develop, succeed as well as fail, participate, struggle and persevere for a quality of life, privacy, developing confidential relationships, being in harmony with your culture, being treated in good faith, and being yourself.

 

Reinforcement
Teaches the effective use of reinforcement. Includes examples of reinforcement, types of schedules, types of reinforcers, finding effective reinforcers, and the misuse of reinforcement.

 

Prompt-Reinforce Sequence
Extends the application of reinforcement by presenting a teaching strategy to use in hundreds of planned and unplanned teaching opportunities each day. Includes gaining a person's attention, prompting, and simplifying instructions.

 

Group Teaching Techniques
Prepares staff to conduct effective group teaching. Includes how to group people, selecting teaching techniques, arrange seating, arrange materials, and involve individuals.

 

Dealing with Inappropriate Behavior
Helps staff learn to diagnose the intention of inappropriate behavior and to understand the rationale of positive programming.

 

Crisis Management
Helps staff manage themselves in a crisis and assist others to regain self-control. Includes learning to manage stress in a crisis and alternatives to defuse a crisis situation.

 

Plus...

• The Staff Training Manual includes supplemental reading material and verbal competency tests.

• The Instructor's Guide assists you in the effective use of the curriculum including test materials to assess performance.

 

Basic Concepts II comprises eight films that address controversial issues for people with disabilities.

​

Self-Determination: Enabling People to Make Choices 
Teaches how to make choice more than just a slogan by involving people with developmental disabilities in day-to-day, short-term, and longer-term decisions.

 

Diagnosing Challenging Behavior I: Medical and Environmental Causes
Teaches a scientific approach toward identifying the underlying reasons for challenging behavior. Teaches how to detect patterns of behavior to arrive at sensible treatment interventions.

 

Diagnosing Challenging Behavior II: Functional Assessment
Teaches how to recognize indicators of the four most common reasons for challenging behavior. Includes suggestions for individualized treatment strategies to address these underlying reasons.

 

Human Sexuality I: Rights
Confronts sexual mythology. Explains the rights to develop and relate as a sexual being, to privacy, to be informed about matters of sexuality, to choose marital status, to have children or not, to have access to related services, and to make decisions affecting your own life.

 

Human Sexuality II: Developing a Mentor/Friendship Relationship
Learn to be supportive, helpful, and a resource to others in the development of a healthy sexual identity. Demonstrates how to make use of informal teaching opportunities about human sexuality.

 

Aging I: Meeting Basic Needs 
Covers the changes that accompany older age and discusses basic needs of economic security, access to adequate health services, access to needed teaching, and access to other needed services, including advocacy and guardianship.

 

Aging II: Living with Dignity 
Discusses supporting elderly people with developmental disabilities to maintain a sense of self-worth through self-determination, maintaining a productive and meaningful life, maintaining a healthy social network, and being proactive about aging.

 

Teaching Anger Management
Learn how and why anger management training works to reduce both mild and serious aggressions, and how to develop, maintain and support an anger management program.

 

Plus...

• Written materials, including competence tests and study guides, come with each DVD or videotape.