Education and training in developmental disabilities最新文献

We examined the relationship between three discrimination skills (visual, visual matching-to-sample, and auditory-visual) and four stimulus modalities (object, picture, spoken, and video) in assessing preferences of leisure activities for 7 adults with developmental disabilities. Three discrimination skills were measured using the Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities Test. Three participants mastered a visual discrimination task, but not visual matching-to-sample and auditory-visual discriminations; two participants mastered visual and visual matching-to-sample discriminations, but not auditory-visual discrimination, and two participants showed all three discriminations. The most and least preferred activities, identified through paired-stimulus preference assessment using objects, were presented to each participant in each of the four modalities using a reversal design. The results showed that (1) participants with visual discrimination alone showed a preference for their preferred activities in the object modality only; (2) those with visual and visual matching-to-sample discriminations, but not auditory-visual discrimination, showed a preference for their preferred activities in the object but not in the spoken modality, and mixed results in the pictorial and video modalities; and (3) those with all three discriminations showed a preference for their preferred activities in all four modalities. These results provide partial replications of previous findings on the relationship between discriminations and object, pictorial, and spoken modalities, and extend previous research to include video stimuli.

The single-stimulus (SS) preference assessment procedure has been described as more appropriate than the paired stimulus (PS) procedure for "lower functioning" individuals, but this guideline's vagueness limits its usefulness. We administered the SS and PS preference assessment procedures with food items to seven individuals with severe or profound developmental disabilities who scored at level 2 of the Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities (ABLA) and seven who scored at ABLA level 3. Thirteen of the 14 participants also received these assessments (PS and SS), with non-food items. The two procedures were about equally effective for both groups, and with both types of stimuli, although the PS procedure produced more refined preference hierarchies. Most participants showed moderate to high correlations in preference scores between the two procedures for both food and non-food items. These results suggest that, for individuals who score at either ABLA level 2 or ABLA level 3, the SS and the PS procedures are equally likely to identify preferred stimuli.

Two persons with severe intellectual disabilities and two persons with profound intellectual disabilities were repeatedly presented with five different pairs of food items. The five pairs of items represented different degrees of preference, from highest to lowest. Happiness indices were monitored from the time that a pair of items was presented until a choice was made. Surprisingly, participants showed very few happiness indices throughout the study, and degree of preference had very little effect on frequency of happiness indices. Questions are raised regarding choice opportunities and indices of happiness as indicators of quality of life.