PERFORMANCE OF ADMINISTRATORS, PROFESSIONALS, AND PARAPROFESSIONALS DURING COMMUNITY-BASED BRAIN INJURY REHABILITATION TRAINING

Objective: Two related studies that evaluated the impact of a continui ng education program about community-based rehabilitation on the perfo rmance of administrators, professionals, and paraprofessionals are pre sented. One study contained a second part that examined whether differ ences between pre-course test performance and post-course test perform ance might be accounted for by practice effects. Design: Factorial mix ed model designs. Setting: University classroom. Participants: Three h undred and eight professionals, administrators, and paraprofessionals from a variety of community-based rehabilitation programs. interventio n The 4-day graduate-level course focused on three content areas: brai n and behavior relationships, behavioral and cognitive intervention st rategies, and a rehabilitation philosophy that emphasizes individual c lient rights. Main Outcome Measure: An examination completed before an d immediately after taking the course. Results: Professionals and admi nistrators perform better than paraprofessionals when tested at the be ginning and end of the training. However, the absolute differences amo ng these groups were not substantial. In addition, the rate of learnin g course content was the same for administrators, paraprofessionals, a nd professionals. Conclusions: The results support the usefulness of t raining for all levels of staff and suggest that all levels of staff b enefit in an equal fashion.