A Case Study Of A Help-Seeking Problem-Solving Intervention For Children With Moderate Intellectual Disabilities

Seeking for help as an important way for individuals to seek survival and development is an important skill for all kinds of vulnerable groups.Appropriate help-seeking demonstrates positive behaviors and goals,is a manifestation of individual maturation,reflects human initiative,and demonstrates the process of gradual socialization.For children with intellectual disabilities,the development of help-seeking problem-solving skills can help unlock their self-determined potential and promote higher levels of social adjustment.From the literature,it is clear that the key cognitive processes of help-seeking are awareness of the need to ask for help,deciding to ask for help and choosing a potential helper,and obtaining help from others.Considering the limited cognitive level of children with moderate intellectual disabilities,it is more appropriate to choose a more specific and real-life approach for training.Therefore,this study adopts the social story method,based on the key cognitive process of individual help-seeking problem solving,and uses picture book stories as a medium to intervene in the help-seeking problem solving ability of children with moderate intellectual disabilities,and verifies the change in the scores of two subjects’ help-seeking problem solving ability by examining The effect of the social story method on the help-seeking problem-solving skills of children with moderate intellectual disabilities was verified by examining the changes in the scores of the two subjects.In this study,two students with intellectual disabilities in the middle grade section of a special school were used to train their help-seeking problem-solving skills using the A-B-A’ type of single-subject research design,based on the key cognitive processes of individual help-seeking problem-solving.The training process was conducted in a one-to-one manner,and two subjects each received 32 training sessions during the intervention period.Suitable help-seeking problem-solving picture book stories were selected as training materials in the study and examined through a self-administered "Help-Seeking Problem-Solving Skills Examination Form for Children with Moderate Intellectual Disabilities".During the examination process,the changes in the scores of the two subjects’ help-seeking problem-solving ability in previous years were continuously examined,and finally 32 valid score data data points were obtained for each of the two subjects,among which 8,16,and 8 valid data points were obtained for the baseline period,intervention period,and follow-up period,respectively.After the data were collected and organized,visual analysis and C-statistics were used to statistically analyze the help-seeking problem-solving ability scores of the two subjects.In order to understand the effect of training more comprehensively and objectively,the study also conducted interviews with the subjects’ parents and teachers before and after the training,and analyzed the social evaluation effect of the training.Based on the results of the visual analysis,the comparative analysis of C-statistics and the social evaluation results,it can be seen that the training of problem solving skills for children with moderate intellectual disabilities based on the key cognitive processes of individual help-seeking problem solving and using the social story method is effective in improving their help-seeking problem solving ability.The results of the study showed that(1)the social storytelling method applied to problem solving training for children with moderate intellectual disability had good immediate and sustained effects on the improvement of problem solving skills.(2)The problem solving skills of children with moderate mental retardation can achieve good social evaluation after the training.Taking into account the actual training process,this study suggests that the training materials used in the problem solving training for children with moderate intellectual disability should be suitable for their cognitive level,the training should follow the general cognitive process of children’s problem solving,and the autonomy of children with moderate intellectual disability should be given full play in the process of problem solving skills training.