Cognitive variables and depressed mood in adults with intellectual disability.
Adults with ID can self-report hopeless thoughts, and those thoughts line up with their mood, so you can assess and treat them with adapted CBT.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked adults with intellectual disability to fill out simple mood and thought questionnaires.
They compared answers from people with and without signs of depression to see if Beck’s negative-triad ideas showed up.
All participants had enough language to understand the plain-language forms.
What they found
Depressed adults chose more hopeless, self-blaming and negative-world statements.
The pattern matched Beck’s theory, showing the adults could report their own cognitive symptoms.
How this fits with other research
Stancliffe et al. (2007) repeated the idea and created the CTI-C, a short checklist you can use in clinic.
Boudreau et al. (2015) and Porter et al. (2008) took the same theory into group CBT run by agency staff; clients’ depression and negative thoughts dropped.
Glenn et al. (2003) looked similar but saw anxious and depressive thoughts overlap; the studies do not clash—they just warn us to check for both mood problems.
Why it matters
You no longer need to guess mood from behavior alone. If an adult with ID can understand simple questions, give a quick cognitive scale such as the CTI-C. Score it, note hopeless thoughts, and plug those thoughts into your CBT plan—exactly what later trials did with success.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Cognitive theory forms the foundation for cognitive therapy. There has been little research on cognitive theories and cognitive variables associated with depression in individuals with intellectual disability (ID). The current study examined cognitive variables of automatic thoughts, cognitive triad, hopelessness, attributions and self-esteem associated with two cognitive theories of depression: Beck's Cognitive Triad theory and the Hopelessness theory of depression. METHODS: Seventy-three adults with ID screened for adequate receptive vocabulary were interviewed as part of a larger study. They reported on cognitive constructs relating to depressed mood. In addition, comparisons were made between 12 adults with ID and diagnosed major depression and a matched group of 12 adults with ID and no psychiatric diagnoses in order to determine if these groups differed on the cognitive constructs associated with the two cognitive theories of depression. RESULTS: The cognitive variables examined were all significantly correlated with depressed mood in the direction predicted by their respective cognitive theory. Internal consistencies were good or excellent for most instruments, with the exception of those measuring hopelessness and attributions. In addition, significant differences were obtained between groups of individuals with and without co-morbid major depression on all variables except for hopelessness. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that adults with ID screened for adequate receptive vocabulary are capable of reporting on subjective feelings of depressed mood and associated cognition constructs. The instruments used may be suitable for this population as they generally possessed sound internal consistencies. The results support the further examination of cognitive theories of depression among individuals with ID in order to assess the appropriateness of cognitive therapies for this population. Discrepant findings regarding hopelessness are discussed.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2005 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2005.00710.x