Mindfulness training assists individuals with moderate mental retardation to maintain their community placements.

Three adults with moderate intellectual disability were about to lose their community homes because of hitting, kicking, and yelling.

The trainer taught each person a simple mindfulness move: when anger rose, they shifted all attention to the feeling in the soles of their feet.

The study used a multiple-baseline design across participants to see if this single skill could keep them housed.

Aggressive episodes dropped in every participant after the soles-of-the-feet training began.

All three adults kept their community placements for at least two years with no returns to locked units.

Edwards et al. (2007) ran the same soles-of-the-feet procedure with in-patients who had mental illness and saw aggression fall to almost zero for four years. Together the two papers show one move works across diagnoses.

Hwang et al. (2013) reviewed twelve mindfulness studies in developmental disabilities and found lasting gains, placing our target paper inside a bigger evidence pile.

Singh et al. (2016) flipped the lens: instead of training clients, they taught caregivers mindfulness-based positive behavior support. Caregiver training cut client aggression, staff stress, and saved money—showing you can attack the same problem from either side.

You can teach a single attention-shift skill in one afternoon and give adults with ID a portable tool they use on their own. No extra staff, no medication changes, no costly protocol. Try it during your next anger-management session: have the client stand, feel their feet, and report what they notice. Track aggression for a week—you may keep someone in their own home.