Effect of a classroom-based intervention on the social skills of pupils with intellectual disability in Southwest Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Studies have demonstrated that social skill interventions and classroom supports are effective for pupils with intellectual disability. Such interventions have been demonstrated to reduce the risk of developing mental disorders, majority of which have their onset during the period of youth. Most young people with intellectual disability in low-resource settings do not have access to interventions that would enable or enhance their participation in society. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a social skills training for pupils with intellectual disability attending a special school in Southwest Nigeria.Methods: Thirty pupils with mild to moderate intellectual disability participated in the study. Utilising the Explore social skills curriculum, teachers were trained to give lessons to the participants 3-4 times a week for 8 weeks in their classrooms. Social skills level of participants was assessed with the Matson evaluation of social skills for individuals with severe retardation (MESSIER) at baseline and immediately after the intervention. Paired t tests, Wilcoxon signedrank test, Mann-Whitney U test and the Kruskal-Wallis Test were used to assess for pre and post intervention changes in social skills scores and analysis of changes in social skills across socio-demographic variables at p < 0.05. Results:The mean age of the participants was 15.70 ± 1.89 years. At baseline, 18 of the participants (63.3 %) had moderate social skills impairment, 2 (6.7 %) had none or minimal impairments and 10 (30 %) had severe impairments. At the end of the intervention, there was a 20 % reduction in the number of participants in the severe social skills impairment category and 13.3 % increase in the number of participants in the 'none or minimal' social skills category. The mean pre and post-intervention total social skills scores were 126.63 ± 17.91 and 135.97 ± 20.81 respectively with a mean difference of 9.34 (t = 3.71; p = 0.001). Conclusion:The social skills of pupils with intellectual disability who participated in this study improved significantly during the 8 weeks the Explore social skills curriculum was administered. Advocacy should be made for the development and incorporation of social skills curricula into routine teaching of pupils with developmental disabilities.

Designing Family-based Cognitive Rehabilitation and Evaluation of Its Effectiveness on Working Memory, Sustained Attention, Inhibition, and Social Skills of Children With Intellectual Disability

“…According to the findings, this assumption was not approved. This finding was not consistent with the previous studies [24][25][26]. For explaining this finding, it can be said that improving social skills through some training sessions is partly impossible; also, the non-significant effects of cognitive rehabilitation on the social skills does not mean that such intervention is not useful rather it implies that targeting the underlying mechanism of social skills (adaptive behavior and executive functions) should be addressed early and for long period, as well as in a continuous way, since this population show the improvement of social skills in different settings.…”

“…When children with poor executive functions experience problems in social interaction, they are separated from peers and may experience other difficulties in a particular situation [23]. Previous studies investigated the social skills training of this population and reported positive consequences [24][25][26]. So, there is a necessity to understand the best intervention to improve executive functions and the social skills of this population to improve their quality of life.…”

A comparison of individual qualities of resiliency in adolescents with mild intellectual disability and typically developing adolescents

“…The obtained findings indicating the absence of significant age differences in self-efficacy are supported by the results of previous studies (Gresham et al, 1988;Payne & Jahoda, 2004). Similarly, the results which refer to sense of relatedness are consistent with the findings of other authors according to which, in persons with ID, there were no significant age differences in social skills (Adeniyi & Omigbodun, 2016;Heiman & Margalit, 1998), peer acceptance and relations (Heiman & Margalit, 1998;Wendelborg & Kvello, 2010), and perceived social support (Lunsky & Benson, 2001). In interpreting these findings, Nota and colleagues (2007) made a significant observation that the limited experiences and opportunities that hinder individual qualities of people with ID override any age-related effects.…”

“…Nota and associates (2010) explained the lack of differences in self-efficacy beliefs in male and female persons with ID by the fact that school and extra scholastic activities for individuals with ID were rarely differentiated by gender, and thus girls and boys with ID mainly had similar experiences. The results of this research which refer to individual qualities in the sense of relatedness domain, are consistent with the findings of other authors indicating that in children and adolescents with ID gender was not significantly related to peer acceptance and relations (Smoot, 2004;Wendelborg & Kvello, 2010) or social skills (Adeniyi & Omigbodun, 2016;Heiman & Margalit, 1998). This is further supported by empirical findings that academic competence, physical appearance and behavior problems had more influence on the status of persons with ID in their peer group than gender (Baydik & Bakkaloğlu, 2009).…”

A comprehensive educational program for promoting Sexual Knowledge and Social Skills Mild Intellectually Disabled Teenagers in Puberty: protocol for a mixed methods study

“…Studies have shown that social skills interventions and classroom supports are effective for students with MID, as such interventions have been veri ed to reduce the risk of developing mental disorders. The strategies for teaching social skills such as modeling, role playing, positive reinforcement, practice/rehearsal, incidental teaching, prompting, and coaching would help the adolescents begin and extend positive social relationships with others [38][39][40][41].…”