ABA Fundamentals
Teaching social skills to adults with intellectual disabilities: a comparison of external control and problem-solving interventions.
★ The Verdict
Problem-solving and external-control BST give the same modest gains when teaching broad social skills to adults with mild ID.
✓ Read this if BCBAs running social-skills groups in day-hab or residential settings.
✗ Skip if Clinicians who need strong generalization or maintenance.
01Research in Context
01
What this study did
You can save planning time: pick either problem-solving or external-control BST for general social lessons. Both work equally well, but only a little. If you need lasting or broad skills, tighten the target, add self-instruction, and use many examples.
FREE CEUs
Get CEUs on This Topic — Free
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ on-demand CEUs including ethics, supervision, and clinical topics like this one. Plus a new live CEU every Wednesday.
✓ 60+ on-demand CEUs (ethics, supervision, general)
✓ New live CEU every Wednesday
✓ Community of 500+ BCBAs
✓ 100% free to join
→ Action — try this Monday
Switch from wide social-skills lessons to one clear, useful response (e.g., ask for help) and teach it with varied examples and self-cue cards.
02At a glance
Intervention
behavioral skills training
Design
alternating treatments
Sample size
5
Population
intellectual disability
Finding
null
Magnitude
negligible
03Original abstract
We compared the effectiveness of a problem-solving and an external control intervention to teach social skills to five adults with mild intellectual disabilities. The social skills of "responding to corrective feedback" and "managing conflict" were targeted for intervention. Each participant received the problem-solving intervention with one social skill and the external control intervention with the other social skill. The comparative effectiveness of the social skills training protocol was evaluated using individual participant alternating treatments designs. Little difference between the intervention protocol was observed in terms of acquisition, generalization, and maintenance of the social skills. Limitations of the current study and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2004 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2003.07.003