Assisting obese students with intellectual disabilities to actively perform the activity of walking in place using a dance pad to control their preferred environmental stimulation

Abstract

This study used a standard dance pad with a newly developed foot-pressing position detection program (FPPDP) software program. FPPDP is a new software program which was used to turn a standard dance pad into a foot-pressing position detector to evaluate whether two people with intellectual disabilities would be able to actively perform the activity of walking in place in order to control their preferred environmental stimulation. This study was performed according to a multiple baseline design across participants. The data showed that both participants were more willing to perform the activity of walking activity to activate the environmental stimulation during the intervention phases than in the baseline phase, and retained this effective performance in the maintenance phase. The practical and developmental implications of the findings are discussed.