A study of the relationship of community living situation to independence and satisfaction in the lives of mentally retarded adults.
Less supervision in group homes lifts both independence and resident satisfaction.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lindsley (1992) looked at adults with intellectual disability already living in group homes.
The team asked how much staff supervision each person got at home.
They also measured how independent and satisfied each adult felt.
What they found
More staff watchfulness went hand in hand with lower independence.
It also linked to lower satisfaction with the home itself.
Social support, not functional skill level, predicted higher independence and happiness.
How this fits with other research
Singh et al. (1991) found the same pattern a year earlier: supervised apartments beat group homes on independence while keeping satisfaction high.
Lam et al. (2011) later surveyed many more homes and showed group homes can still score well on quality-of-life domains, extending the picture.
English et al. (1995) seems to disagree: their adults in independent flats had almost no contact with non-disabled neighbors.
The clash is only on the surface: R measured satisfaction, A measured social integration—two different outcomes.
Why it matters
When you write support plans, question every routine check or restriction. Replace blanket supervision with targeted help and real social opportunities. Adults feel freer and happier, and later studies show quality stays solid.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study examined the relationship between the level of supervision provided at the community residences of 61 adults with mental retardation and their sense of independence and satisfaction in specific aspects of home life, work and community activity. Responses given to interview questions were transformed into scores for independence and satisfaction for each subject. In order to compare the relationship of supervision at home, an individual's intellectual functional ability, and his social support to independence and satisfaction, non-parametric analyses of the data were performed. These revealed statistically significant inverse relationships between the degree of home supervision and independence both at home and within the community, and satisfaction at home. Greater functional ability was found not to be significantly related to any measures of independence or satisfaction. A high level of social support was correlated only with overall measures of community independence, satisfaction at home, and community satisfaction.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 1992 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.1992.tb00489.x