Students with disabilities often face difficulty throughout their lives. One of these common challenges for students with severe disabilities is they often struggle with routine skills — for example, significant time spent helping students transition to activities throughout the day. The student's performance to complete required daily school routines increased when the researcher applied the picture activity schedules. Also, one strategy to enable students with disabilities to increase independence is through assistive technology. Therefore, many studies support the use of technology-based visual supports to teach daily school routines. Teachers increasingly have started to adopt an electronic visual activity schedule (eVAS) as a means to provide clear and consistent support for students with disabilities. Although the above studies are positive, there is still a need to more fully examine the various outcomes of eVAS. Therefore, this study is to investigate the effects of using eVAS (i.e., FIRST THEN application) on the latency period that the student spends for checking the schedule independently and prompts needed to transition throughout the day. Also, the value that the teacher and student place on the use of an eVAS to teach daily life and school routines instead of using typical instruction (e.g., traditional visual schedule), and the student’s ability to generalize the use of the eVAS across instructors and materials (display). The participant was a 10-year-old male in the fifth grade with intellectual disability and autism. This study was conducted in an intermediate school in the southeastern United States. An ABAB single case design was used to investigate the effects of the app. The dependent variables (DV) included: 1) The percent of independent correct responding to the natural cue “timer went off, or the teacher said: “Time to Switch”; 2) The amount of time the participant took to respond to the natural cue and check a schedule. The independent variable (IV) was applying the system of least prompts (SLP) along with the First Then application on iPad. Both DV and IV were collected five sessions in five days, during the transition period between activities in each baseline, intervention, maintenance, and generalization phases. The second observer recorded 25% of the data collection of the inter-observer agreement and procedural fidelity. By the end of the study, the social validity survey was provided one for the teacher and another one for the participant. The result indicated a functional relation between DV and the IV. Also, the limitation and the suggestion for future research were discussed. In conclusion, this study extended the result of prior studies by emphasizing the effectiveness of using the eVAS with students to independently complete the routine skills and applying SLP to give the student the opportunity to do the task with less prompts. The study will guide teachers use of such support tool and apply the intervention in the classroom with students with disabilities.

Objectives The purpose of this systematic review was to investigate the effectiveness of video prompting and modeling with handheld devices/mobile technology to increase the ability of individuals with ID to engage in daily living skills. Methods A comprehensive systematic search in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) standards to identify relevant experimental studies utilizing video prompting or modeling on handheld devices to teach daily living skills for individuals with ID was conducted. Results Twenty-four SCRD studies met criteria for inclusion involving 64 participants with varying levels of ID with 79% (N = 19) of studies involving domestic skills (e.g., cleaning, cooking, doing laundry), and 21% (N = 5) involving community skills; 75% (N = 18) used video prompting, 21% (N = 5) used video modeling, and 4% (N = 1) used both. Conclusions Effect sizes and visual analysis indicated that video prompting or modeling through handheld devices were effective in teaching daily living skills to individuals with ID. Future research for this population should include studies to teach personal skills (e.g., dressing, grooming, toileting) as there were no studies in this domain.

My study is of the provision of career education, health education, personal development and student development programmes for students from Years 7 to 10 in ACT high schools. My purpose was to identify why these programmes are not available to all students and what can be done to make them available. The methods I used were an examination of a longitudinal case study of "Bellbird" High School in parallel with a survey of the current system perspective. Although the study focuses on the ACT in Australia, reference is made to the international literature, as well as local, regarding the attitudes of students, parents and teachers to career education, health education, personal development and student development programmes; data collection and interpretation; and the implementation of change. I have used data from three different survey instruments administered at "Bellbird" High School, at five year intervals, in 1978/79, 1984 and 1989. I have used another instrument at system level twice, in two consecutive years, in 1988 and 1989. Each of the instruments was developed for a specific purpose and not for gathering data for this study. All three surveys at "Bellbird" High School were designed to determine the attitudes of students, parents and teachers to aspects of the curriculum. They provided both quantitative and qualitative data. Basically, I have compared the 1979 and 1989 numerical data, and used the 1984 material for confirmation of significant issues. In addition to using qualitative data from these three instruments, I have also used comments from curriculum committee and School Board documents and evaluation reports from the Living Skills Programme. At system level, a questionnaire was designed to gather data about the provision of career education and health education in high schools in the ACT. This instrument, included questions about barriers to these programmes and strategies for overcoming the barriers. The findings were distributed to the schools. The procedure was based on the 'Research, Development and Diffusion' model. People associated with the successful implementation of the programmes under investigation were interviewed to find out what barriers they had faced, how they overcame them and what suggestions they had for overcoming other baniers to these programmes. Using the data CO-jointly with the literature and my own knowledge of cumculum implementation, I have proposed an action plan for "Bellbird" High School to extend the provision of its student development programme to all students. In conclusion, the suitability of the proposed action plan for use in other ACT high schools is appraised and general principles for the system are drawn out.

The master thesis focuses on the topic of support for parents of children with autism spectrum disorders in the development of daily living skills according to the principles of Applied behavior analysis. In the literature review the theoretical background of the topic and current research findings based on the literature are described. The empirical part is conceived as a qualitative research. The goal is to monitor the change in the behavior of parents and their children with ASD when practicing hand washing after using two different ways of parent training - behavioral skills training and video manual. The method of data collection was an observation of video recordings provided by families which were assessed by two observers using an evaluation checklist. Furthermore, the data were supplemented with information from a questionnaire which was used to receive feedback from the participants. The results of the research map the progress of each participating parent and child in hand washing procedure according to the principles of ABA. The conclusions can be the foundation for future research to create a suitable parent training model in practice of daily living skills in children with ASD. Keywords Applied behavior analysis; Autism spectrum disorder; Behavior skills training; Daily living skills;...

The Mauritius School for the Blind is primarily funded through government support. Therefore, it is currently a requirement of the School to adhere to the same curricula as used in all primary schools in Mauritius. This research highlights the necessity for a curriculum that can be specifically designed to meet the needs of visually impaired children. The objectives of the study were; to conduct an evaluation to determine the visually impaired children’s educational goals; to establish the key orientation, mobility and independence skills required by children and young people at the School who are visually impaired; to identify ways in which the skills development programme can be implemented within, and beyond, the School’s curriculum; to propose a set of self-help skills training processes that can form part of the current curriculum to enable visually impaired children at the School for the Blind to become more independent. A triangulation research methodology constituting both qualitative and quantitative research was used. The participants consisted of 12 visually impaired children, the Head of the School, three NGO staff members and six teachers. Thematic analysis led to themes and categories emerging in the arena of self-help skills development. Independence and self-help skills were the main themes determined through data analysis. The secondary themes which emerged from the main ones consisted of social skills, travel skills, daily living skills and education. Sub-themes derived from social skills were cultural differences and its associated feeling of discrimination. Sub-themes under travel skills included independent travel and assistance. Finally, education comprised of sub-themes such as a special programme on self-help skills and training for teachers. The above analysis stressed the need to set up a committee in order to start developing a curriculum in the arena of self-help skills. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

The Mauritius School for the Blind is primarily funded through government support. Therefore, it is currently a requirement of the School to adhere to the same curricula as used in all primary schools in Mauritius. This research highlights the necessity for a curriculum that can be specifically designed to meet the needs of visually impaired children. The objectives of the study were; to conduct an evaluation to determine the visually impaired children’s educational goals; to establish the key orientation, mobility and independence skills required by children and young people at the School who are visually impaired; to identify ways in which the skills development programme can be implemented within, and beyond, the School’s curriculum; to propose a set of self-help skills training processes that can form part of the current curriculum to enable visually impaired children at the School for the Blind to become more independent. A triangulation research methodology constituting both qualitative and quantitative research was used. The participants consisted of 12 visually impaired children, the Head of the School, three NGO staff members and six teachers. Thematic analysis led to themes and categories emerging in the arena of self-help skills development. Independence and self-help skills were the main themes determined through data analysis. The secondary themes which emerged from the main ones consisted of social skills, travel skills, daily living skills and education. Sub-themes derived from social skills were cultural differences and its associated feeling of discrimination. Sub-themes under travel skills included independent travel and assistance. Finally, education comprised of sub-themes such as a special programme on self-help skills and training for teachers. The above analysis stressed the need to set up a committee in order to start developing a curriculum in the arena of self-help skills. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)