A classroom time programme may improve children's time skills
HelpedThe short version
Eight weeks of classroom time training improved children's time skills more than ordinary lessons did.
- 67
- children with intellectual disabilities in Swedish special schools
- Randomised
- groups picked at random
- Recorded
- behaviour was recorded
- 1 tool
- tested
The study
Who took part
67 children aged 10 to 17 took part. All had mild or moderate intellectual disabilities and attended one of seven special schools in Sweden.
What they did
For eight weeks, teachers had pupils time everyday activities with a quarter-hour stopwatch. Pupils wrote the times down and talked about them as a group, and each child timed about 15 activities. The other classes kept ordinary lessons.
What happened
The classes with the programme improved more on a test of time skills than the waiting classes did, a medium-sized gain. Children's own ratings of their autonomy and parents' ratings of daily time management showed no clear difference between the groups. The paper's numbers of children don't quite agree with each other.
What the study found
- HelpedTime management
Eight weeks of classroom time training improved children's time skills more than ordinary lessons did.
Small randomised trial of 67 children with intellectual disabilities in Swedish special schools · vs classes that kept ordinary lessons · behaviour was recorded · ⚠ whole groups were assigned, not people; numbers unreliable
- No differenceTime management
Parents' ratings of daily time management went up in both groups, with no clear extra gain from the programme.
Small randomised trial of 67 children with intellectual disabilities in Swedish special schools · vs classes that kept ordinary lessons · behaviour was recorded · ⚠ whole groups were assigned, not people; numbers unreliable
- No differenceOther outcomes
Children's own ratings of how independent they were in daily routines did not change more than in the other classes.
Small randomised trial of 67 children with intellectual disabilities in Swedish special schools · vs classes that kept ordinary lessons · behaviour was recorded · ⚠ whole groups were assigned, not people; numbers unreliable
How solid is this?
- Groups picked at random
- Behaviour was recorded
- Small group
- Whole groups were assigned, not people
- Numbers unreliable
Source
Intervention in time-processing ability, daily time management and autonomy in children with intellectual disabilities aged 10–17 years – A cluster randomised trial (2018)
DOI: 10.1111/1440-1630.12547 (opens in a new tab)
