Reducing Structural Barriers to Improve the Social Life of Three Adults with Severe Disabilities

Abstract

Social life can be diminished by barriers inadvertently associated with “support.” Social barriers were identified for three adults with severe intellectual disabilities. A multiple baseline design across subjects was used to examine the effects of removing these barriers on the social life of each participant. The dependent variables in the study were (a) the number of social activities done per week, (b) the number of different people with whom social activities were done each week, and (c) the stability of social relationships across time as indexed by the number of different weeks in which activities occurred with a companion across the 27 weeks of the study. The independent variable was a seven-component “barrier reduction” package. Support staff were taught to use each component of the package, and pre-post measurement of package use was obtained. Results indicate that the staff successfully implemented the barrier reduction package, and that implementation was associated with change in the social life of each participant. The study raises implications for (a) assessing structural barriers, (b) modifying structural barriers, and (c) measurement of “social stability” as an important index of social life for future research.