Programa “Vida na Comunidade” para familiares de jovens com deficiência intelectual
Resumen
This research aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the "Community Life Program" for
parents/family in order to promote independence in life activities in the community for young
people with Intellectual Disabilities. Participants were four young people with intellectual
disabilities aged 19-29 years who formed dyads with their family member. The research took
place in two cities in São Paulo State, Brazil, in community places near the residence of these
young people. With dyads 1 and 3 it was worked shopping activities and with the dyads 2 and
4 it was worked activities related to moving around community. It was employed the
intermittent multiple baseline design across subjects to verify the effects of program
implementation and to demonstrate the validity of experimental control and manipulation of
the study variables. The independent variable was introduced at different moments for
participants. The dependent variable was analyzed before, during and after the
implementation of the program. The “Community Life Program” was employed based in
theoretical and practical intervention sessions. In the theoretical sessions it was used
instructional material to assist parents/family members during the sessions and also in the
absence of the researcher. The practice sessions were recorded and analyzed by the
observation protocol. The results showed that, when the intervention was started with the
implementation of the program, parents/family started demonstrating more appropriate
responses, which favored the learning of young people with intellectual disabilities, which
increased the percentage of independence in performing the activities. These results were
maintained over time in all dyads and generalized to other contexts in dyads 1, 2 and 4. The
dyad 3 did not perform generalization sessions due to non-availability of the mother. The
good performance achieved by the participants may have been possible due to changing
environmental contingencies provided from the implementation of the "Community Life in
the program." It is noteworthy that teaching the activity for each of the young people provided
learning in various skills that generalized to other functional activities. This study presents
contributions on the implementation of a program to assist parents / family in education of
young people with intellectual disabilities, especially with regard to the teaching of adaptive
activities in the "Community Life" to promote the inclusion and participation in society and
improve quality of life.