Promoting social inclusion: a structured intervention for enhancing interpersonal problem‐solving skills in children with mild intellectual disabilities

Abstract

There has been increasing interest in providing students with disabilities, who are at risk of social isolation, with opportunities to develop social competence and self-determination. Specifically, the provision of opportunities for teaching these students to promote social problem-solving skills is potentially useful for facilitating their social participation in inclusive settings. Although the importance of teaching problem-solving skills has been emphasised, there are still open questions regarding how teachers could put knowledge about problemsolving skills learning into practice, especially with regard to students with intellectual disabilities. This article presents a four-phase educational intervention programme designed to teach students with mild intellectual disabilities social problem-solving skills. A detailed description of the programme, including materials and methods, is provided.

Training Social Information Processing in Elementary School Children With Intellectual Disabilities: A Key to Support Their Emotion Regulation and Social Behaviors

“…A few SIP training programs have been developed for adolescents and adults with IDs (Anderson & Kazantzis, 2008;Cote, 2011;Crites & Dunn, 2004;Nestler & Goldbeck, 2011;O'Reilly et al, 2004;Vlachou & Stavroussi, 2016). Yet, most SIP programs have been implemented among children with externalizing behaviors at preschool and school age (for a review see Houssa, 2016;Houssa et al, 2016;Houssa et al, 2017); and some among children with autism spectrum disorder, with or without IDs (Bernard-Opitz et al, 2001;Radley et al, 2014).…”

Problem Solving Using Visual Support for Young Children With Autism

“…Supporting the development of problem-solving skills among children with ASD and other disabilities is an important area of instruction in inclusive environments (Cote et al, 2014; Vlachou & Stavroussi, 2016). By designing multiple opportunities to teach problem solving throughout the day teachers can support the development of this skill (Cote et al, 2014).…”

“…The impact of problem-solving skills on the development of social skills, self-regulation, and self-determination has been widely discussed (Merrill et al, 2017; Vlachou & Stavroussi, 2016; Wehmeyer & Palmer, 2000). Proficiency in problem solving is defined as the ability to work through a process that demonstrates the ability to (a) recognize the occurrence of a problem, (b) generate multiple solutions to problems, (c) select and apply the best possible solution to the problem, and (d) evaluate the impact of the applied solution (D’Zurilla & Goldfried, 1971; Palmer & Wehmeyer, 2003).…”

Theory of Mind or Social Information Processing Training: Which Is the Better Way to Foster Social Adjustment?

“…Concerning SIP interventions, very few have been tested in experimental studies. Such studies have been conducted on adolescents and adults with IDs (Anderson & Kazantzis, 2008;Cote, 2011;Crites & Dunn, 2004;Nestler & Goldbeck, 2011;O'Reilly et al, 2004;Vlachou & Stavroussi, 2016), and only two have focused on elementary school children displaying IDs (Jacobs et al, 2016;Jacobs & Nader-Grosbois, 2020b). The findings of these studies demonstrate the effectiveness of SIP training for people with IDs.…”