Abstract

High school students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) often struggle with hygiene skills, including table manners. These difficulties are especially noticeable in peer tutoring settings. Peer tutors were utilized to increase the mouth wiping behavior of the students with IDD using peer influence through the friendship circles intervention. The participants included high school age students with IDD and accompanying peer tutors from their classroom. This was done in a social setting during lunch while the peer tutors modeled the appropriate mouth wiping behavior and complimented the students with IDD if they also participated in the mouth wiping behavior. The friendship circles intervention was utilized to determine if it could be used to increase hygiene skills, specifically mouth wiping. The findings show that the friendship circles intervention, typically used to teach social skills, was not effective in teaching hygiene skills to most of the participants. The findings also show that using the friendship circles intervention to teach hygiene skills improved the level of relationship between peer tutors and participants.

Degree

College and Department

David O. McKay School of Education; Counseling Psychology and Special Education

Rights

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