Teaching Leisure Skills to an Adult with Developmental Disabilities Using a Video Prompting Intervention Package

The current study used a video prompting plus least-to-most prompting treatment package to teach a 35-year-old Caucasian man with Down Syndrome three leisure skills. Each leisure skill was task analyzed and the researchers created brief videos depicting the completion of individual steps. Using a multiple probe across behaviors design, the video prompting intervention was introduced for painting a picture, listening to music, and taking a digital picture. In addition to video prompting, a least-to-most prompting strategy was used when the participant exhibited difficulty with completion of a step. Results indicate that the participant successfully completed steps of the leisure skills with the aid of video and instructional prompts. Leisure skills and activities have long been identified as a priority for individuals with developmental disabilities (Dattilo & Schleien, 1994; Schleien, Porter, Wehman, 1979; Voeltz & Apffel, 1981). Leisure activities are important because of the positive, beneficial effects on social skills, communication abilities, and overall quality of life of participants (Felce & Perry, 1995, Garzia-Villamisar & Dattilo, 2011). Unfortunately, adults with disabilities engage in very few leisure activities despite frequent opportunities to do so. Zijlstra & Vlaskamp (2005) found that persons with severe disabilities, in a typical weekend, spent less than four hours in leisure activities, although as many as 19 hours were available for such activities. Video prompting has been used as an effective method of instructing individuals with developmental disabilities to successfully complete a variety of behaviors, such as daily living skills (Cannella-Malone, Sigafoos, O’Reilly, de la Cruz, & Lancioni, 2006; Goodson, Sigafoos, O’Reilly, Cannella, & Lancioni, 2007; Sigafoos et al., 2007; Van Laarhoven, Kraus, Karpman, Nizzi, & Valentino, 2010; Van Laarhoven & Van Laarhoven-Myers, 2006), cooking skills (Graves, Collins, Schuster, & Kleinert, 2005; Mechling, Gast, & Fields, 2008; Mechling, Gast, & Seid, 2009; Mechling & Gustafson, 2008; Mechling & Gustafson, 2009; Mechling & Stephens, 2009; Sigafoos et al., 2005; Van Laarhoven, Chandler, McNamara, & Zurita, 2009), purchasing skills (Cihak, Alberto, Taber-Doughty, & Gama, 2006; Mechling, Gast, & Barthold, 2003), pedestrian travel (Mechling & Seid, 2011), and vocational skills (Van Laarhoven, Johnson, Van Laarhoven-Myers, Grider, & Grider, 2009). In video prompting, individuals are shown brief videos that depict individual steps of the target behavior. The participant is shown a video, allowed to complete that step, and then shown the next video for the next step. The process continues until the participant has completed the target behavior. Positive findings across studies suggest that video prompting is an effective method to teach new skills to individuals with disabilities and a recent review of video prompting studies indicates that video prompting is also effective for facilitating generalization and maintenance of skills and may The authors wish to thank the participant and his family for their participation. We also wish to thank the staff of Helping Hand Center. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jeffrey Chan, Department of Special and Early Education, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115. Email: [email protected] Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 2013, 48(3), 412–420 © Division on Autism and Developmental Disabilities 412 / Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities-September 2013 be more effective than pictures or video models (Banda, Dogoe, & Matuszny, 2011). In some recent studies, researchers have taught leisure skills to individuals with developmental disabilities. These studies are unique in that the leisure activities have involved the use of digital devices. For example, Edrisinha, O’Reilly, Choi, Sigafoos, & Lancioni (2011) used video prompting to teach four adults with developmental disabilities to take pictures with digital cameras, transfer the pictures to a computer, and print them. Video prompting was carried out using a laptop within a room at a day treatment program, and all four participants mastered the skills. Upon reaching criterion, the authors demonstrated that the behavior generalized to naturalistic settings (i.e., participants successfully took pictures outdoors). Hammond, Whatley, Ayres, and Gast (2010) taught three middle school students with intellectual disabilities to use iPod Nanos to listen to music, watch movies, and take pictures. The authors utilized a video modeling approach, in which the entire target behavior is shown to the participant prior to attempting in the activity. Intervention sessions were conducted at the participants’ school and video modeling was conducted on a desktop computer. All three participants learned to use the iPods when video modeling was introduced. Similarly, Kagohara et al. (2011) used a video modeling procedure to teach three high school students with severe and multiple disabilities to listen to music on an iPod Touch. Video modeling took place with an iPod Touch in the participants’ special education classroom. The participants successfully learned to listen to music on the iPods with instruction and they were able to maintain the skill after the intervention had been discontinued. The goal of the current study was to expand on the previous literature by teaching an adult with developmental disabilities to engage in leisure activities involving a digital entertainment device. The activities chosen for intervention were listening to music and taking digital pictures on an iPod Touch. Painting a picture was also chosen as a target behavior. A video prompting intervention was implemented with an iPod Touch. It was hypothesized that the participant would successfully learn the leisure skills with video prompts in conjunction with a least-to-most prompting system.