Supporting High School Students to Engage in Recreational Activities with Peers

Abstract

The authors investigated the effects of an intervention package to support five high school students with extensive support-needs to initiate and engage in recreational activities with general-education peers in their physical education classes. The intervention components were (a) assessing participants' recreational activity goals, (b) teaching self-prompting using a picture book, (c) programming common stimuli, and (d) asking participants to assess daily performance and evaluate daily goal achievement. The intervention was associated with increases in participants' initiation of and engagement in recreational activities with general-education peers, as well as increases in ratings of quality of interaction. In addition, participants typically assessed with accuracy their performance of recreational activities and whether they had achieved their recreational goals. Findings are discussed with respect to future research and practice.