Psychometric Properties and Utility of the Social Vulnerability Questionnaire for Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

A Distance-Delivered Social Skills Program for Young Adults with Williams Syndrome: Evaluating Feasibility and Preliminary Efficacy

Adults with Williams syndrome (WS) display hypersocial behaviors and experience social skills deficits. To improve social outcomes, we evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of an 8-week distance-delivered social skills program for adults with WS. Sessions were offered twice a week for 90 min. Twenty-four adults with WS were assigned to an intervention or waitlist control group. Outcomes were assessed through interviews and surveys with adults with WS, parents, and facilitators. The intervention was rated as acceptable and feasible by all. Parents rated adults with WS as displaying significant improvements in social skills; yet ratings by adults with WS did not change. Adults also displayed increased social skills knowledge following participation. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Clinical utility of a hybrid secondary and relapse prevention program in adults with mild intellectual disability or borderline intellectual functioning in community residential and day habilitation settings

BACKGROUND

Despite evidence that standard substance use disorder (SUD) treatment may be less effective in people with intellectual disability (ID), there is an absence of appropriate clinical tools with which to support them.

OBJECTIVES

This study examined the clinical utility of an alcohol and other drug refusal skills intervention designed to be cognitively accessible to adults with ID METHODS: Thirty individuals at high risk for or in recovery from a SUD in developmental disability services (DDS) community residential and day habilitation settings participated in the two-week refusal skills group. Measures included pretest versus posttest improvement in refusal skill competency and baseline performance on a standardized verbal learning test.

RESULTS

There was a strong effect for refusal skill acquisition (p < .001); and the magnitude of skill acquisition was predicted by group attendance (p < .001) and not by individual differences in verbal learning ability (p = .074) or efficiency (p = .35).

CONCLUSIONS

The Refusal Skills Group is developmentally appropriate for people with mild ID in that: (1) they can learn and demonstrate refusal skills and (2) their skill acquisition is predicted more strongly by exposure to the intervention than by individual differences in learning characteristics. Delivering refusal skills in DDS settings familiar to clients increased their access to services and minimized disruption to their usual routines and schedules.

A cross-syndrome approach to the social phenotype of neurodevelopmental disorders: Focusing on social vulnerability and social interaction style

BACKGROUND

Following Annette Karmiloff-Smith's approach to cognitive research, this study applied a cross-syndrome approach to the social phenotype, focusing on social vulnerability (SV) and the factors that contribute to it.

AIMS

To (i) identify syndrome-specific differences in SV across four neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) groups, (ii) determine the contribution of intellectual disability (ID), age or gender to SV, and (iii) explore its relationship with social interaction style (SIS).

METHODS AND PROCEDURES

262 parents of children: Autism (n = 29), Williams syndrome (n = 29), Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (n = 36), Fragile X syndrome (n = 18), and Neurotypical (n = 150) reported on their child's SV, quality of SIS and other factors (ID, age, gender).

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

Heightened SV was not syndrome-specific. Instead it was found equally across NDD groups (and not in the neurotypical group), and independently of ID, age and gender. Different atypical SISs were also distributed across NDD groups and each were significantly related to SV, independent of the factors above and beyond neurodevelopmental diagnosis.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

The findings emphasise that social phenotypes are best understood as distributed across diagnostic boundaries and offer opportunities to further test the role of varied atypical SISs in the development of heightened SV.