Abstract
The purpose of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of a host family experience program on the adaptive behavior and self-management skills of children with severe disabilities and to suggest its applicability into clinical practice. The investigators developed a host family experience program and researched the pre-test and post-test designs with nonequivalent groups. The experiment and comparison groups were comprised of 34 children with severe disabilities that lived at S, a care facility for the severely disabled. They were examined for the program's effects on them before and after the application. After analyzing 17 cases for differences in the subjects' quantitative scores, a qualitative analysis was carried out on one representative case. The quantitative analysis results reveal that the experiment group showed a significant increase in their scores of adaptive behavior and self-management skills compared to the comparison group. Positive changes were also observed among the former group in the qualitative analysis. Thus the host family experience program was effective in improving the adaptive behavior and self-management skills of the children with severe disabilities at the facility. These findings indicate that the host family experience program played a positive role in enhancing the adaptive behavior and self-management skills of the children with severe disabilities at the facility and that such host family experience programs should be applied and reinforced in the field of social welfare practice.