VALIDATING PREDICTED ACTIVITY PREFERENCES OF INDIVIDUALS WITH SEVERE DISABILITIES

We examined the accuracy of 24 staff members' predictions of activitie s preferred by 14 individuals with severe disabilities. For each of 14 4 activities, staff members assigned a client preference rating of ''l ikes a lot,'' ''likes,'' or ''dislikes.'' Two activities from each cat egory were randomly selected for each individual with disabilities. Pa irs of selected activities were presented to the individuals, who were prompted to choose an activity. Staff members' activity preference ra tings correctly predicted the choices made by the individuals with dis abilities for 78% of the trials. The more divergent the preference rat ings of the paired activities, the more likely staff members were to p redict correctly the activity selected by a participant.