Conversational skills training with aftercare patients in the community: Social validation and generalization

Ten chronic psychiatric patients enrolled in a partial hospitalization program and who had conversational difficulty received group skills training that focused on specific conversational components and on speech content. Components and criterion levels for training were established from an assessment of the conversational skills of "normal" nonpsychiatric persons in their community. Training was evaluated with a multiple baseline design. Effectiveness was demonstrated through (1) behavioral ratings during dyadic and unstructured conversations with other former patients; (2) behavioral ratings during extended conversations with unfamiliar nonpsychiatric persons; and (3) maintenance of improvement at 1-, 3-, and 7-month follow-up.