Assessing adaptive behaviour with pre-lingually deaf people with an intellectual disability who use sign language

Abstract

Objectives: To determine whether the traditional assessment of adaptive behaviour is valid with deaf people who use sign language. Some Deaf people with a mild intellectual disability often struggle to gain fluency in sign language and hence experience high levels of exclusion from both hearing and deaf communities and support services. They can struggle to find ways of solving many of the difficulties of modern life and can struggle to develop some adaptive behaviours. Without an appreciation of the linguistic and cultural context of a Deaf person, assessment is difficult. There is a question whether comparisons should be made with Deaf people without ID or to hearing people with and without an ID. Methods: A small sample of deaf people with an intellectual disability was assessed about their adaptive behaviour in their first language of British Sign Language using the ABAS-III. This was triangulated with the views of their support staff who were also deaf and sign language users. Each participant and their adaptive behaviour were discussed in BSL. Results: For each participant, the responses to each item of the ABAS-III was systematically analysed for construct validity and discussed with Deaf support workers. Items which were difficult to adapt or appeared inappropriate or inaccurate were identified. Comparisons to the age norms were made. Conclusions: Findings suggests that formal assessment of adaptive behaviour of Deaf people with ID should be used with caution. Recommendations for a valid assessment of adaptive behaviour are made based on the findings of this study.