Effects of an Instructional Support Package for Community-based Instruction for Young Adults with Extensive Support Needs

Federal legislation for students with disabilities mandates that all students receive appropriate and relevant instruction across environments to improve postsecondary outcomes across domains. Teachers and parents alike have found that one way to meet individual student needs and increase instructional opportunities for students with disabilities is through the use of purposeful and meaningful community-based instruction (CBI). For students with extensive support needs (ESN), however, the practical implementation of CBI within the classroom and community setting may pose several barriers and relies heavily on teacher and family knowledge of community engagement strategies. Previous research in the area of CBI indicates that through the use of evidence-based practices CBI is effective in teaching skills across the four identified domains, which include leisure, vocational, community engagement, and daily living. In an attempt to bridge gaps in the available literature and research in the area of CBI, this study evaluated the effects of an intervention package comprised of three evidence-based practices (video modeling, visual supports, and system of least prompts), goal setting, and collaboration, through peer-implemented instruction, in order to teach leisure skills to young adults with ESN in relevant community settings. The experimental design was a multiple probe across skills replicated across two participants. Two young adults, ages 21 and 22 with ESN participated in the study, along with two of their same aged peers, and relevant team members/key stakeholders (i.e., program director at their university, parents). Three community-based leisure skills across three environments were chosen with a specific skill targeted at each location. The intervention was effective for teaching these leisure skills to the participants across all three community locations. In addition, they were able to generalize and maintain these skills at the conclusion of the study. Social validity measures indicated that all participants felt that these were relevant skills for the participants and that their role in this process was valuable. The findings from this study can be used to guide future research in the area of CBI with students of all ages to support them as they access community settings.