Using independence training to teach independent living skills to children and young men with visual impairments

Two groups of students with visual impairments were taught various independent living skills. Of the 7 students, 5 also had a diagnosis of mental retardation. One group (3 first graders) was taught the tasks of folding a shirt, making an emergency telephone call, and spreading soft foods with a knife. The other group (4 young men) was taught to increase leisure skills through three different leather-work tasks. Independence training was conducted in a group format and included social learning components (e.g., self-evaluation, peer evaluation and reinforcement) in addition to traditional operant procedures (e.g., modeling, prompting). However, because of the presence of visual impairments, a physical and verbal modification of modeling was used, whereby the subject was physically guided through the steps and simultaneously provided with a narration of the steps. A multiple baseline design across behaviors demonstrated the efficacy of the comprehensive training package in training various independent living skills to the two groups of visually impaired and mentally retarded students. Social validity measures demonstrated the clinical significance of the subsequent changes in behavioral skills. Follow-up data collected 10 months after the completion of training indicated a good degree of maintenance. The current positive results show that training procedures used exclusively with persons with mental retardation can be modified and be effective with a different and younger population, while targeting different independent living skills.