Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Perception of Incidental Social Interactions During Independent Travel on Public Transport: An Exploratory Study with Adults with Intellectual Disability

2022; Springer Science+Business Media; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-3-031-04987-3_40

1611-3349

Hursula Mengue-Topio, Séléné Conrad, Laurie Letalle, Yannick Courbois,

Down syndrome and intellectual disability research

People with intellectual disability (ID) face a variety of barriers to independent travel in their communities. Barriers to independent mobility are related to both individual characteristics and the physical and social environment. This exploratory study explores the perceptions of people with ID about social interactions that may occur during their travels in the community and particularly when using public transportation. Using social information processing theory, we assessed the reading and interpretation of appropriate versus inappropriate social interactions (in the context of bus travel) of 19 adults with ID from 8 video vignettes. Results revealed that ten out of nineteen participants (52.63%) correctly identified all inappropriate social interactions. Eighteen out of nineteen participants (94.73%) correctly identified all appropriate social interactions. Finally, nine out of 19 participants (47.36%) made no identification errors with appropriate and inappropriate social interactions. In addition, there was a tendency for participants to better analyze appropriate, adapted social interactions compared to inappropriate social interactions. Social interactions with other passengers of public transport can be a source of anxiety during travel for people with ID and are one of the reasons why people themselves and those around them (families, professionals) restrict travel. This social dimension, also needed during travels, should further be integrated into mobility training in order to teach problem solving skills to ID people.