Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities - Division on ...

even<strong>in</strong>g tasks <strong>in</strong>dependently, <strong>and</strong> 63% of his
school tasks without prompts. Dur<strong>in</strong>g the <strong>in</strong>tervention
phases, us<strong>in</strong>g the PDA as a primary
prompt, Kent <strong>in</strong>dependently completed a
mean of: 47% of morn<strong>in</strong>g tasks, 87% of school
tasks, <strong>and</strong> 33% of his even<strong>in</strong>g tasks. The study
was carried out over a 20-day period. Data
were taken for 15 days at school because the
school year ended. The break <strong>in</strong> the data l<strong>in</strong>es
dur<strong>in</strong>g the morn<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong> even<strong>in</strong>g activities on
Day 15 represents the transition between the
last day of school <strong>and</strong> the start of summer
vacation.
Discussion
The purpose of this <strong>in</strong>vestigation was to determ<strong>in</strong>e
if a PDA could assist an adolescent <strong>in</strong>
complet<strong>in</strong>g home- <strong>and</strong> school-based tasks <strong>in</strong>dependently.
Results should be <strong>in</strong>terpreted
carefully with limitation considerations given
Figure 3. Even<strong>in</strong>g data collection sheet.
to the length of <strong>in</strong>tervention <strong>and</strong> use of s<strong>in</strong>glesubject
design procedures.
Conclusions
64 / <strong>Education</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g</strong> <strong>in</strong> <strong>Developmental</strong> <strong>Disabilities</strong>-March 2005
Results of this study could, <strong>in</strong> part, be attributed
to the novelty of the PDA. This device
appeared to appeal to Kent <strong>and</strong> may have
helped to ease the transition <strong>in</strong>to the <strong>in</strong>tervention.
He quickly learned how to manipulate
the PDA <strong>and</strong> required rem<strong>in</strong>ders to ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong>
the sett<strong>in</strong>gs dur<strong>in</strong>g the <strong>in</strong>tervention phases
<strong>and</strong> not “adjust” them. While Kent required
little tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g to use the PDA, by comparison,
his teacher <strong>and</strong> mother experienced difficulty
learn<strong>in</strong>g how to use the technology, even after
multiple tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g sessions. This is significant
<strong>in</strong> that technology use <strong>in</strong> educational sett<strong>in</strong>gs
can only be successful when adequate support
provided (Mirenda et al., 2000).
Kent’s data <strong>in</strong>dicate that generalization may
have occurred across sett<strong>in</strong>gs. That is, <strong>in</strong>de-