Psychosocial treatment malls for people with intellectual disabilities

The provision of active treatment for people with intellectual disabilities has been seminal in the literature and in practice for a number of years. Active treatment has programmatic, financial, and legal ramifications for agencies and should be at the center of all appropriate treatment plans. The current work examines the use of psychosocial rehabilitation treatment malls to deliver active treatment to people with intellectual disabilities. The history, development, and implementation of these methods are discussed, with emphasis on services that are functional, meaningful, and portable. The importance of the therapeutic milieu is considered in context and discussed as the primary pathway to increased community integration. Finally, future directions of the treatment malls are considered. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.