Recent legislation and litigation have focused considerable clinical attention on the social integration of people with handicaps into the community mainstream. Measures of adaptive behavior have played an increasingly important part in this endeavor. They serve two primary functions: classification/placement and program planning/treatment. This paper traces the conceptual origins of adaptive behavior from state residential institutions to its role in the complex process of community integration. A framework for evaluating and selecting adaptive behavior scales is presented along with a review of current trends in measurement. The last section discusses conceptual and methodological issues that presently confront the adaptive behavior field.
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Howard G. Cohen (1988) studied this question.