Defining Meaningful Literacy: Findings from a Socially-oriented Literacy Intervention for Adults with Developmental Disabilities

The current study is a qualitative analysis of the results of a literacy skills intervention with a group comprising of three individuals with Down syndrome and three individuals with other developmental disabilities. The intervention was developed to address the concern that individuals in this population are often only exposed to functional literacy experiences (i.e. those building only literacy skills required for daily functioning and survival), at the expense of more enriched experiences that engage personal meaning. As a result, it included both reading and writing activities designed to invite personal investment in literacy experiences. In this vein, the data collected derives primarily from the participant's own writing, and has been supplemented with other qualitative measures (e.g. parental questionnaires, participant focus group responses, field notes). The current article discusses the impact and implications of this intervention for future literacy interventions of this kind, in terms of the themes, which emerged from these data; with a particular emphasis on the participants' own experiences.