Teaching participants with developmental disabilities to comply with self-instructions

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Special Education

Background:

• Individuals with intellectual disabilities often face challenges in abstract reasoning and task generalization.
• Self-instructional strategies are used to improve cognitive skills in various populations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effectiveness of self-instructional training on sorting tasks for adults with mild intellectual disability.
• To examine the role of acting on self-instructions versus merely stating them.

Main Methods:

• Four adults with mild intellectual disability were trained on a picture-sorting task requiring identification of common features.
• Participants were taught to use self-instructions, initially failing to sort correctly.
• A subsequent intervention focused on teaching participants to act on their self-instructions, followed by remediation for generalization deficits.

Main Results:

• Participants initially failed to sort pictures correctly, even with self-instructional prompts.
• Teaching participants to act on their self-instructions led to correct sorting performance.
• Two participants required further intervention to remediate imperfect generalization of the learned strategy.

Conclusions:

• Self-instructional strategies can be effective for improving sorting skills in adults with mild intellectual disability when combined with an emphasis on acting on those instructions.
• The ability to generalize and apply learned self-instructions requires specific training and potential remediation.