Preventing Substance Abuse in Special Education Students
Funded by the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development
- Helps students recognize peer pressure
- Provides effective student responses
- Engaging video and animation content
- Founded on rule-based learning
- Can be used without teacher supervision
With a natural desire to be accepted, intellectually disabled teens are especially vulnerable to peer pressure. They are more likely to say they drink alcohol, for instance, because their friends do or because they want to be part of the “in crowd.” Preventing Substance Abuse combines an engaging video and animation format with rule-based learning to help teens distinguish between the genuine encouragement of a friend and peer pressure to engage in unwise activities.
The program begins with an animated race care driver, “J.T. Lamington,” talking about how much he enjoys driving fast but also about how he must rely upon his pit crew for important advice to stay safe. In the case of this program, J.T. advises students to think of the school principal as part of the pit crew team. Students then view several video stories in which friends suggest that an MR/DD student engage in a particular activity (e.g., cutting in line, drinking alcohol, inviting a new student to lunch). J.T. explains the rule that if an activity is something the principal would approve of, the friends are considered to be giving social encouragement. If the activity is something the principal would disapprove of—no matter how positive their demeanor—the “friends” are considered to be using social pressure.
Students interact with the video stories by clicking on the thumbs up or thumbs down buttons to answer the question, “Is this social pressure?” or as the lessons progress, “Is this social encouragement?” Those who incorrectly identify the situation are given further instruction until they can demonstrate mastery. Following this unit, J.T. narrates a section that demonstrates effective ways to respond to a situation when there is social pressure.
After viewing this interactive program, students in a trial of the CD were able to more accurately distinguish between pressure and encouragement than they were before seeing the program.
System Requirements:
Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows ME
20 MB available hard drive space
200 MHz processor
32 MB available RAM
800x600 16-bit color monitor
10x CD-Rom drive
Quicktime 5.0
Sound card
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