A Preliminary Study in Teaching Self-Protective Skills to Children with Moderate and Severe Mental Retardation

Abstract

A modification of the multiple-probe design was used to teach students with mental retardation appropriate strategies for responding to inappropriate invitations from strangers. Seven students were tested in three different naturalistic settings using adult confederates prior and subsequent to receiving instruction in self-protective skills. Students' responses were videotaped by a concealed camera and subsequently rated using a behavior checklist. Six of the 7 students displayed improvement in self-protective skills, which generalized to a nontraining situation and across individual abductors. A 14-day follow-up probe indicated that the gains made by 6 of the 7 students in refusing a lure were maintained, despite variability in scores across the component behaviors of the self-protective skills taught. Design limitations, in part arising from the nature of the subject matter, limit the generalizability of the findings of this preliminary study; however, results are encouraging with respect to the effects of group-based self-protective training with individuals who are mentally retarded.