An Outcome of a Day Treatment Unit School in a Community Mental Health Center.

A day treatment school program is described in terms of its objectives and educational program. Psychoeducational teaching is used with the emotionally disturbed children who attend in hopes of: (1) modifying their behavior; (2) increasing their academic achievement; and (3) returning to a regular classroom. In determining outcome results of the program, the case records of 50 children no longer in attendance were examined for pre-treatment age, problems, intelligence level, etc. Post-treatment data included parent and teacher ratings of the childrens' behavior and adjustment. In addition, parental evaluations of the program were elicited. Pre-treatment and post-treatment data were then paired and randomly placed first and second. Five judges were asked to select which of the two symptom patterns was given at the followup. Findings indicated: (1) parents generally felt there had been improvement, while teachers generally reported the children poorly adjusted; and (2) children admitted to the program while still quite young showed a greater improvement rate. (TL)