Pregnancy Prevention Program for the Learning Disabled

The overall goal of this project is to create an interactive program designed to prevent pregnancy among learning disabled (LD) adolescents and young adults - those with cognitive limitations who fall into the categories of "borderline intellectual functioning" (IQ range generally 71-84), "mild mental retardation" (IQ range generally 50-55 to 70) and "moderate mental retardation" (IQ range generally 35-40 to 50-55). Young people with LD are frequently ill-prepared to make good decisions about sexual activity, pregnancy, and parenthood. Despite this inadequate preparation, many adolescents and young adults with LD look forward to sexually intimate relationships, marriage, and parenthood. This project will develop six stand-alone gender-specific CD-ROM pregnancy prevention programs for youth and young adults with learning disabilities at the middle school (11-14 years), high school (15-21 years), and adult (2 1-35 years) age levels who fall into three categories of intellectual functioning. Within each program, negotiating, decision-making, and conflict resolution skills will be taught using an interactive text-free program incorporating graphics, animation, and video components. Direct Instruction (DI) methodology will be employed to facilitate mastery of program content for all program users. The program will be evaluated by 350 individuals with learning disabilities in a randomized clinical trial. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: This program fills a unique need: pregnancy prevention for learning disabled youth and young adults. This product will be attractive to people with learning disabilities and anyone serving this population (e.g., parents, schools, training centers, vocational and residential services, public health clinics, and group homes).