Teaching social skills to adults with intellectual disabilities: a comparison of external control and problem-solving interventions

We compared the effectiveness of a problem-solving and an external control intervention to teach social skills to five adults with mild intellectual disabilities. The social skills of "responding to corrective feedback" and "managing conflict" were targeted for intervention. Each participant received the problem-solving intervention with one social skill and the external control intervention with the other social skill. The comparative effectiveness of the social skills training protocol was evaluated using individual participant alternating treatments designs. Little difference between the intervention protocol was observed in terms of acquisition, generalization, and maintenance of the social skills. Limitations of the current study and suggestions for future research are discussed. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.