Does Video Priming and Video Modelling help to reduce anxiety and increase social behaviours for adults who have a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder or Intellectual Disability when starting paid employment?

Abstract

Employment rates for adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Intellectual Disability (ID) are much lower than the general population. Social skill difficulties and experiences with anxiety are thought to be contributing factors to this low employment rate. This study incorporated two Video-based Interventions (VBI’s), Video Priming (VP) and Video Modelling (VM), to address anxiety and social skill difficulties for 2 adults with disabilities who were starting work in a supported employment service. Both participants were adult males, one of whom had an ASD diagnosis, and the other who had an ID diagnosis. VP was used to provide a preview of the expected events at the beginning of the first day at work, in an attempt to reduce anxiety associated with starting a new job. Anxiety levels of the participant who did receive VP were compared to those of the participant who did not receive VP. Results showed a decrease in anxiety for the participant who received the VP intervention and suggested that VP may improve experiences of anxiety for people with ID and ASD who are starting a new job. VM was implemented in this study to teach target social behaviours to participants, with an aim of increasing these behaviours. Results for each participant showed increases in many, but not all, of the target social behaviours, but these increases were not maintained over time and returned to baseline levels. Overall, this research provides support for VBI’s as an intervention to reduce challenges such as anxiety and social skill deficits for adults with ASD and ID starting work. Recommendations have been made in regard to conducting further research to continue exploring the use of VP to reduce anxiety relating to starting as this is a developing area of information, and where adjustments can be made to the VM intervention to further evaluate the effectiveness of this.