A Qualitative Inquiry on the Experiences and Perceptions of College Students with Developmental Disabilities through Journal Writing

Language has been the most popular source of communication in human society since the start of civilization. The tradition of Folk Tales appeared as the foundation of literature in ancient times. Poetry is a significant way of expression in human literature. Urdu language possesses uncountable master pieces of prose and poetry. Visually impaired persons have proved themselves as literature lovers, good readers and visionary poets in past and present. This study is an effort to depict the awareness level of visually impaired college students about Urdu poets and their creations. The population of the study consisted of all visually impaired students enrolled in public and private sector colleges located in the district Lahore and Okara. A self developed and validated structured interview schedule containing 10 open ended questions was used to collect data from conveniently selected sample of 30 visually impaired students (males= 18, females=12). Descriptive statistics (percentages of responses) were calculated, collected information was coded; major themes were derived and interpreted by qualitative data analysis technique. The Study reflected that the visually impaired college students were having a lot of information about Urdu poets and their creations although there seemed a lack of in depth knowledge. They reported the lack of talking books and material in Braille on Urdu poetry of great and famous poets. They suggested the establishment of talking libraries throughout the country. Major findings were reported, conclusions were drawn and recommendations were made to Punjab Higher Education Department.

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Teaching Small Talk: Increasing On-Topic Conversational Exchanges in College Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Using Remote Audio Coaching

Behavior Modification ◽

10.1177/0145445520975174 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 014544552097517

Author(s):

Brianna Joseph ◽

Kelly B. Kearney ◽

Michael P. Brady ◽

Angelica Downey ◽

Ayse Torres

Keyword(s):

College Students ◽

Developmental Disabilities ◽

Positive Impact ◽

Multiple Baseline ◽

Future Research ◽

Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities ◽

Baseline Design ◽

Small Talk ◽

Covert Audio Coaching ◽

Community Environments

Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) often have deficits in interpersonal skills due to limited social-communication opportunities. Knowing how to engage in “small talk” or simple social conversational exchanges can be beneficial in postsecondary schooling, employment sites, community environments, and social gatherings. Recently, covert audio coaching (CAC) showed a positive impact on increasing conversational exchanges. As the COVID-19 pandemic increased the need for remote delivery tools, we explored the effectiveness of remote audio coaching (RAC) to teach this skill to college students with IDD. We used a multiple baseline design across participants to examine whether RAC might increase on-topic, small talk conversational exchanges. Results demonstrated that RAC effectively increased small talk skills between participants and a confederate. Upon removal of RAC, all participants still performed above their baselines, with two participants maintaining near mastery levels 2 weeks after the intervention was removed. Limitations and future research are discussed.

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