People have to make a decision or choice at every moment in daily
routine life, no matter whether it's important or not for their lives. To
lead an independent and self-reliant life, they should be capable of
making a judgment on their own.
Typically,...
People have to make a decision or choice at every moment in daily
routine life, no matter whether it's important or not for their lives. To
lead an independent and self-reliant life, they should be capable of
making a judgment on their own.
Typically, people with intellectual disabilities live and work in very
structured environments, and they are considered not to make a decision
on their own, and there are lots of barriers to their spontaneous decision
making and choice just on the ground that they have disabilities. But
recent studies established that there are no differences between people
with severe disabilities or with intellectual disabilities and people without
disabilities in self-determination and doing what's determined to do.
There are a wide range of activities to improve the self-determination
skills of adults with intellectual disabilities, and leisure activities are one
of general ways to boost self-determination skills. If living an
independent life in local community is the ultimate goal of special
education, leisure activities are one of the factors to determine successful
integration into local community. Among a variety of leisure activities,
board game is easy to enjoy irrespective of gender and age. It's possible
to play board game even in a small space, and that is easy to learn.
Thanks to such benefits, board game is intriguing and gives satisfaction
to many people.
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a leisure
program of board game on the improvement of the self-determination
skills of adults with intellectual disabilities.
A single-subject research was implemented, and four research questions
were posed:
1. What influence do leisure activities exert on the autonomy of adults
with intellectual disabilities?
2. What influence do leisure activities exert on the self-regulations of
adults with intellectual disabilities?
3. What influence do leisure activities exert on the psychological
competency of adults with intellectual disabilities?
4. What influence do leisure activities exert on the self-realization of
adults with intellectual disabilities?
The subject in this study were three adults with intellectual disabilities
who were provided with care during daytime at a daycare center for the
disabled in the city of A. An experiment was implemented in 25 sessions
during a three-month period of time from September 3 to November 30,
2012, three times a week, by offering a board game program. Their
behaviors were graded by two observers, and their scores were recorded
on a checklist. As for data analysis, board game was selected as an
independent variable, and the subfactors of self-determination skills were
selected as dependent variables. And then an ABAB design was utilized
to make a graph of their behavioral change scores. Among different kinds
of board games on the market, a board game for education that was
popular among adults and could improve self-determination skills was
selected. The instrument used to assess their self-determination skills
was the ARC's Self-Determination Scale(Wehmeyer & Kelchner, 1995),
which was published by the American Association on Mental Retardation.
This scale was modified to be appropriate at the level of the adults with
intellectual disabilities to make a single-subject research.
The findings of the study were as follows:
First, how the leisure program that used the board game affected the
autonomy of the adults with intellectual disabilities was analyzed, and the
program was found to make a contribution to the improvement of the
autonomy of the adults with intellectual disabilities.
Second, how the leisure program that used the board game affected the
self-regulations of the adults with intellectual disabilities was analyzed,
and the program was found to make a contribution to the improvement of
the self-regulations of the adults with intellectual disabilities.
Third, how the leisure program that used the board game affected the
psychological competency of the adults with intellectual disabilities was
analyzed, and the program was found to make a contribution to the
improvement of the psychological competency of the adults with
intellectual disabilities.
Fourth, how the leisure program that used the board game affected the
self-realization of the adults with intellectual disabilities among selfdetermination
skills was analyzed, and the program was found to make a
contribution to the improvement of the self-realization of the adults with
intellectual disabilities.