Abstract
The purpose of this study was to evaluate social skills training (SST) program in terms of its generalization, maintenance, and social validity. Four chronic schizophrenic inpatients who had stayed in a hospital more than 9 years participated in the SST program. The SST program consists of two phases; In order to promote its generalization and maintenance, (a) common physical and discriminative stimuli between the training setting and the natural setting were used, (b) the reinforcement schedule was shifted from continued reinforcement schedule (CRF) in training phase I to a partial reinforcement schedule in training phase II. Results indicate that the SST program improved social skills of participants, and that generalization and maintenance were observed for 20 months. The results of social validity questionnaires showed a positive evaluation of the SST program by both the participants and the doctor.
