Using an Instructional Package to Teach Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation with Automated External Defibrillator to College Students with Intellectual Disability

Adults with intellectual disability may not learn safety skills needed to maintain the safety of those within their communities. Basic life-saving skills are valued by community members and increase independent and integrated living and employment opportunities. This study used an instructional package consisting of modeling, task analysis, and simultaneous prompting to teach college students with intellectual disability a basic life-saving skill, specifically how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) with the use of an automated external defibrillator (AED). Phase 1 of the study used the instructional package to teach the students to perform CPR. Once mastered, Phase 2 of the study taught students to use an AED, incorporating it into the CPR chain. Results showed that the students' accuracy with the tasks increased after the introduction of the instructional package, generalized to a novel environment, and maintained once the instructional package was removed. Implications and future research are discussed.