Cognitive abilities and life experience in everyday planning in adolescents with intellectual disabilities: Support for the difference model.
Even when mental-age looks equal, teens with ID need direct planning lessons because life experience does not transfer.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team compared teens with intellectual disability to mental-age matched peers.
Both groups solved the same planning puzzles, like the Tower of Hanoi.
The study asked: do life experience and age help kids with ID plan better?
What they found
Both groups finished the puzzles at about the same level.
For typical teens, more life experience made planning easier.
For teens with ID, life experience did not help, and being older actually hurt.
How this fits with other research
Firth et al. (2001) saw the same pattern in adults with ID on the same Tower task.
van Tilborg et al. (2018) found a cousin effect in reading: phonological awareness helps typical kids more than kids with ID.
Cadette et al. (2016) warn that standard cognitive tasks can mislead when used with ID; Bellon-Harn et al. (2020) add that the predictors we trust in typical kids may also mislead.
Why it matters
Do not wait for life experience to teach planning to clients with ID.
Teach the steps directly, use visuals, and give lots of practice.
Track each learner: if progress stalls, check if age or extra rules are getting in the way.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: The literature on planning ability in individuals with intellectual disability (ID) provides no clarity on whether their ability matches their mental age (MA) or not. Perhaps can planning experience explain the mixed results. The current study investigated to what extent cognitive abilities and life experience can explain everyday planning ability in individuals with ID and to what extent results from everyday planning tasks support the developmental or the difference model of ID. METHOD: Planning tests, cognitive ability tasks and a self-rated life experience form were administered to 71 adolescents with ID and 62 children with a typical development matched on MA. RESULTS: Adolescents with ID exhibited planning ability according to their MA. Regression analyses showed that the predictors of planning differed between the groups. The cognitive measures could predict planning in both groups, but life experience only contributed positively to planning in the MA group, whereas chronological age was negatively correlated with successful planning in the ID group. CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION: The results support the difference model of ID. When matched on MA, the individuals with ID will solve the planning task in a qualitatively different manner. Additionally, the participants with ID could not utilise their life experience when solving the planning task, contrary to the MA group. Practitioners should be aware that individuals with ID might need more everyday planning training throughout adolescence. To support adolescents with ID, practitioners may focus on supporting the individual's cognitive abilities rather than relying on their prior knowledge.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2020 · doi:10.1111/jir.12710