A Demonstration of Helping Adolescents With Mild Intellectual Disability Climb Ladders

Abstract

AbstractA research team at a vocational school in Singapore, catering mainly to students between the ages of 17–21 with mild intellectual disability, studied how to best address the challenge of enabling students to learn how to climb ladders (a skill necessary at many job placements). They documented the approach used and suggested extrapolations and scalability for similar problems. An exploratory approach was adopted for tackling the training program. The students in the study with motor or anxiety issues required shorter periods of intervention, and prognosis of success in intervention was higher compared with students with a history of fear or phobic experiences. Mapping the process helped enhance the understanding of the support and intervention modality needed by occupational therapists and psychologists to provide information to the staff in the vocational disciplines with the means to enable such motor and dexterity skills. Future studies should involve determining if the process is applicable to difficulties in other vocational task issues or with other phobic activities that involve both psychomotor and psychological issues.