Get Your Coat: Examining the Development of Independent Dressing Skills in Young Children with Visual Impairment, Down Syndrome and Typically Developing Children

Dressing is a fundamental independent living skill (ILS). Vision is an integrative sense which affords learning via sighted observation. Visual impairment (VI) denies/restricts access to learning via sight. As a result, children with VI and conditions where VI may be a component (e.g. Down syndrome (DS)) require structured, systematic support to develop ILS. The current study used a repeated-measures-intervention approach to examine the development of the ILS of dressing (ILSD) with novel intervention materials in young children. Participants (N = 27: age range 5;05-10;02 years) were drawn from three groups: VI (n = 9; age range 5;05-10;02 years); DS (n = 9; age range 5;05-10;00 years) and Typically Developing (TD) (n = 9; age range 6;05-8;00 years). The effectiveness of the intervention materials was measured over a period of 10 weeks. Clear and systematic verbal instruction combined with motor activities was useful in supporting ILSD. The assessment of the longer-term effectiveness was carried out at 1 and 3 months post-intervention. This paper reported that the novel intervention materials supported the development of ILSD in all three groups. The findings could form a model for future work regarding the development of ILS in other skill areas and generalised to other developmental disorders.