Supporting grocery shopping for students with intellectual disability:a preliminary study

Area of Science:

• Special Education
• Assistive Technology
• Intellectual Disability Research

Background:

• Self-operating prompting systems (picture, audio, video) are established tools for skill acquisition in students with disabilities.
• Life skills instruction is crucial for secondary students with intellectual disability, yet grocery shopping receives limited focus.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of picture, audio, and video prompting systems for teaching grocery shopping to high school students with intellectual disability.
• To compare the impact of different prompting systems on item selection, independence, and task completion time.

Main Methods:

• A single-subject alternating treatment design was employed with two high school students diagnosed with intellectual disability.
• The study analyzed the success rate of grocery item selection, percentage of unprompted steps (independence), and time to complete the task under each prompting condition.

Main Results:

• Video prompting emerged as the most successful system for grocery item selection for both participants.
• Student independence and task completion times varied significantly across the different prompting systems, indicating individual differences.

Conclusions:

• Video prompting is a viable instructional strategy for teaching grocery shopping, but its implementation requires consideration of creation time, skill demands, and potential social stigma.
• Matching prompting systems to individual student needs, skills, and preferences is essential for effective and efficient instruction in real-world settings.