Making Videotapes: An Activity for Hospitalized Adolescents

An activities specialist, an instructional technologist, and an occupational therapist developed a videotape program for hospitalized adolescents. The goals of the program were to provide clients with an opportunity to use the videotape medium creatively, to promote communication between staff and clients, and to facilitate each client’s mastery of some aspect of the health care experience. The program was initially implemented on a 30-bed adolescent inpatient unit of a pediatric hospital. Later, with little modification, the program was implemented with an outpatient adolescent group of 6 developmentally disabled young male adults whose antisocial behavior had resulted in contact with the penal system.