Using an Instructional Package to Teach Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation with Automated External Defibrillator to College Students with Developmental Disabilities

Adults with developmental disabilities may not learn the safety skills needed to
maintain the safety of those within their communities. Basic life-saving skills are valued
by community members and increase independent and integrated living and employment
opportunities. This study used an instructional package consisting of modeling, task
analysis, and simultaneous prompting to teach college students with developmental
disabilities a basic life-saving skill, specifically how to perform cardiopulmonary
resuscitation (CPR) with the use of an automated external defibrillator (AED). Phase 1
of the study used the instructional package to teach the students to perform CPR. Once
mastered, Phase 2 of the study taught students to use an AED, incorporating it into the
CPR chain. Results showed that the students’ accuracy with the tasks increased after the
introduction of the instructional package, generalized to a novel environment, and
maintained once the instructional package was removed. Implications and future
research are discussed.