A Connection Between Disobedient Behaviors and Students with Intellectual Disabilities

 

 

The article I read this week was on a study conducted pertaining to disobedient behavior shown by students with intellectual disabilities. Many teachers tend to experience more behavioral issues with students with intellectual disabilities than their chorological aged peers. The study believes that this is due to teachers asking their students with intellectual disabilities to complete tasks that are too difficult for the student’s mental age. “We hypothesize that this contradiction arises from the frustration experienced by children with intellectual disability when faced with task inappropriate for their mental age” (Bierbaum, Henrich, Zigler, 2005).

In order to prove this hypothesis, “a sample of 43 children comprised a total of three groups: an experimental group of children with intellectual disability of no known organic aetiology (intellectual disability group); a mental age comparison group (MA group); and a chronological age comparison group (CA group)” (Bierbaum, Henrich, Zigler, 2005). All students were asked to complete a simple task, that was within all students’ ability level. The task was to arrange blocks on a board in a simple pattern. For the second task, the students were asked to complete a similar task involving blocks, boards, and arranging them in patterns, but in a much more complex matter. Prior to the study, they completed a piolet test, which indicated that if a student was unable to complete the more difficult task within three minutes, he or she would not be able to complete it at (Bierbaum, Henrich, Zigler, 2005). While the children completed the task, staff were asked to observe and mark disobedient behavior through use of a checklist.

After all students completed both tasks, the results were gathered. “As predicted, children in all three groups succeeded in completing the easy block-stacking task while exhibiting no “disobedient” behaviors. Furthermore, the children with intellectual disability showed significantly higher scores on the Disobedient Behaviors Checklist during the difficult task than either the MA or CA comparison groups. Thus children with intellectual disability did show increased disobedient behaviors, but only when faced with a task that is level-inappropriate for their mental age” (Bierbaum, Henrich, Zigler, 2005). Although this results of this study do not surprise me, they did make me stop and think.

As teachers, we must know the capabilities of a student. There should be sufficient testing done in order to understand the child’s prior knowledge and abilities. It is important for students to progress and be challenged, but we need to know when the “challenge” is too challenging. Students with intellectual disabilities tend to already have low self-esteem and when teachers have too high of expectations, instead of motivating the students, they are causing the students to shut down and act out.

I have actually experienced this happen before. I was filling in for a classroom aide, and a student who I have known for a while was acting out and trying to be the “class clown” instead of completing his assigned task. I really liked this student and just figured he was having an off day. Socially, the student seemed to be at most peer levels, so I just assumed that he had a learning disability. It was not until I sat in his three-year reevaluation that I realized that he had an intellectual disability, which made learning extremely difficult for him. Bierbaum, Henrich, Zigler (2005) stated, “because children with intellectual disability of no known organic aetiology have no visible phenotypic markers of their disability, teachers may overestimate their abilities by assigning and expecting success on tasks that are simply beyond the capabilities of the child”. If a child with an intellectual disability is acting out in the classroom, the teacher should take a step back and evaluate his/her instruction to make sure the child is not doing so due to material that is level-inappropriate for the student’s mental age.

 

Reference

Bierbaum, L. J., Henrich, C. C., & Zigler, E. F. (2005). Disobedient Behaviours in Children with Intellectual Disability. Journal of IntellectualaAnd Developmental Disability, 30(2), 115-119.