Abstract:
Persons with intellectual disabilities (ID) are far more likely to be abused than the general
population, but there is little research on teaching people with ID about their rights. The
goal of this study was to teach four participants with ID and limited communication
abilities about their human rights by training them on specific rights topics. The training
program included icebreaker activities, instruction on rights concepts, watching and
answering questions about videotaped scenarios of rights restrictions, watching and
answering questions about role pl ay scenarios of rights restrictions, and responding to
brief, low risk in situ rights restrictions imposed by the researchers. Participant
performance did not improve significantly or consistently from baseline to training on the
questions asked about the videotaped or the role play scenarios, but two of three
participants demonstrated defmite improvements in responding to in situ rights
restrictions.
