Date

Spring 2017

Document Type

Master's Thesis (Open Access)

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Department

Teacher Education

Abstract

Many students with moderate to severe disabilities have challenges with communication and because of this, may use elopement as a way to avoid or escape an undesired situation. The purpose of this study was to use a function-based intervention, the Jacobson Method, to decrease elopement behavior in ninth and tenth grade students with a diagnosis of intellectual disability along with moderate/severe disabilities. The Jacobson Method is a function-based intervention where the participant tenses and relaxes their muscles bringing the participant into a state of relaxation with the goal of being able to emotionally regulate him or herself. The study was a single-case AB design with three participants. After each participant reached three stable data points of no more than a difference of two, then intervention began. Results revealed an overall decrease in the average number of elopement attempts for each participant; however, there was considerable variation in the percentage of nonoverlapping data. The intervention was highly effective for one participant and minimally effective for the other two.

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