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Published on: June 6, 2020
The Language of Change Among Individuals With Mild Intellectual Disability or Borderline Intellectual Functioning:
Lotte C F Gosens1,2, Jannet M de Jonge3, Robert Didden2,4
1Research & Development, Pluryn, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
Background:
The link between a therapist's motivational interviewing skills and the subsequent response of individuals with mild intellectual disabilities to borderline intellectual functioning (MID-BIF) is unknown. This study examines this sequential relationship and describes change talk (CT) in individuals with MID-BIF during substance use disorder (SUD) treatment.
Method:
In this study, 35 treatment sessions were sequentially coded using the Motivational Interviewing Sequential Code for Observing Process Exchanges. Observed and expected frequencies of transitions, transitional probabilities, odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were calculated in Generalized Sequential Querier software. Furthermore, frequencies of CT in IBM SPSS statistics were calculated.
Results:
Questions and reflections of CT and two-sided questions were followed by CT. Questions and reflections of counter change talk (CCT) and two-sided questions were followed by CCT. Individuals expressed all kinds of CT utterances.
Conclusions:
Questions and reflections of CT are powerful skills in evoking CT in individuals with MID-BIF during SUD treatment.
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