Token Reinforcement and Cooperative Learning Strategies in Enhancing Social Skills of Children with Intellectual Disability in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

Children with Intellectual Disability (ID) demonstrate poor social skills and have been shown to experience difficulties in interpersonal relationship. Available literature substantiates the impact of utilizing intervention plans to effectively manage children with ID expressing social skill deficit to enhance their social and academic performance. This study, therefore, investigates social skills of children with ID in Ibadan, Nigeria. Pre-test, post-test and control group quasi-experimental research design was adopted. Thirty (30) participants were purposively selected from two special schools in Ibadan. Four hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance and analyzed using Analysis of Co-variance. There was a significant main effect of treatment on social skills development of children with ID [F(2,18) = 28.719, p<0.05). Gender and socio-economic status had no significant effect on skills development and there was no significant interaction effect on treatment. Token reinforcement and cooperative learning strategies were effective in enhancing social skills of children with intellectual disability. Teachers, therefore, should adopt these strategies to enhance social skills of children with ID in classrooms interaction.