| Abstract: | Fifty-one residents of 14 staffed houses for people with intellectual disabilities were assessed using the Adaptive Behavior Scale (ABS) at the beginning, middle and end of a two year period. Changes in ABS score were calculated to ascertain whether residents experienced continued development once the immediate period following resettlement from institutional services was past. Although some individuals changed little and some lost skills, ABS scores were found to increase significantly over time, particularly among the least able residents. This latter finding prompted further investigations. Conversion to percentile ranks was undertaken to provide a better basis for comparison between individuals as the raw scores cannot be interpreted as an equal interval scale. Unreliability of measurement provided a further reason for caution. Changes in percentile rank scores were relatively modest when compared to the level of unreliability. Moreover, the consistency of change found for individuals across both years of the study period was unconvincing, with the number of times change was in the same direction being only similar to that which would be predicted by chance. Overall, the study demonstrates the difficulties encountered in trying to establish whether improvements in personal competence are ongoing in community residential services for people with intellectual disabilities. |
