Social Skills Training for Adolescents With Intellectual Disabilities

Abstract

Individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) often demonstrate impairments in social functioning, with deficits becoming more apparent during adolescence. This study evaluated the effects of the Superheroes Social Skills program, a program that combines behavioral skills training and video modeling to teach target social skills, on accurate demonstration of three target social skills in adolescents with ID. Skills taught in the present study include Expressing Wants and Needs, Conversation, and Turn Taking. Four adolescents with ID participated in a 3-week social skills intervention, with the intervention occurring twice per week. A multiple baseline across skills design was used to determine the effect of the intervention on social skill accuracy in both a training and generalization setting. All participants demonstrated substantial improvements in skill accuracy in both settings, with teacher ratings of social functioning further suggesting generalization of social skills to nontraining settings.

Use of superheroes social skills with middle school‐age students with autism spectrum disorder

“…Except for the participate skill for Ben and body basics for Nick, generalization data were found to be high and stable throughout the intervention phase. Whereas generalization has been demonstrated to parents of elementary‐age children with ASD (e.g., Radley et al., , ) and teachers of adolescents with intellectual disabilities (O'Handley et al., ), no prior studies have assessed generalization of skills by individuals with ASD to other settings and persons within a school setting. Findings of generalization to other settings and persons within the school are notable, given that school‐based social skills training programs for children with ASD have been found to produce limited generalized effects (Bellini & Hopf, ).…”

“…Whereas the program has primarily been used with elementary‐age children with ASD, recent researchers have examined the effect of participation in the program with other populations. O'Handley, Ford, Radley, Helbig, and Wimberly () evaluated the efficacy of the program in increasing skill accuracy in both training and generalization settings for students with intellectual disabilities within a high‐school setting. Although originally designed for a younger population (Jenson et al., ), results of the study indicated the potential use of the program with older students with developmental disabilities, as all participants demonstrated improvements in skill accuracy in both training and generalization settings following implementation of the intervention.…”

Feasibility of electronic peer mentoring for transition‐age youth and young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities: Project Teens making Environment and Activity Modifications

“…The topic also provided structure for the application and generalization of the problem solving process during objectives 4 and 5. Peer mentors practiced achieving call objectives and generating examples related to the topics by role-playing calls with research staff and receiving immediate feedback (Gantman, Kapp, Orenski, & Laugeson, 2012; O’Handley, Ford, Radley, Helbig, & Wimberly, 2016).…”

Peer relationships of students with intellectual disabilities in special needs classrooms – a systematic review

“…Although research is still limited, students with more cognitive problems and behavioural difficulties appear to be less well‐accepted by their peers in special needs classrooms. One possible intervention approach may be to build up the social skills of these individuals (e.g., O'Handley, Ford, Radley, et al, ). Another approach is to target low status using classroom‐level interventions.…”