Observing and Influencing Alertness in Individuals With Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities in Multisensory Environments
- Resource Type
- Authors
- A.J.J.M. Ruijssenaars; Carla Vlaskamp; Wendy Post; Vera Munde; Bea Maes; Han Nakken
- Source
- Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology, 11(1), 1905-1915
- Subject
- Alertness
Multiple disabilities
Developmental and Educational Psychology
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Psychology
Education
Developmental psychology
Cognitive psychology
- Language
- ISSN
- 1810-7621
1945-8959
While alertness is widely acknowledged as one of the most important preconditions for learning and development, individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD) experience a wide range of difficulties in the contact with their environment. The aim of the present study was to identify aspects of stimulation situations that influence the alertness levels of individuals in the target population.Based on video recordings of 24 participants, alertness levels and environmental conditions were scored. Descriptive analyses and multilevel logistic regression analysis were used to identify the aspects of the stimulation situation that were related to occurrence of alertness.The results show that visual stimuli (optimally in combination with auditory stimuli) produced the highest alertness levels. Furthermore, the effects of stimuli outweighed the effect of time. The role of direct support persons is thus especially important in alertness stimulation of individuals with PIMD.