Description:
With regard to the subsequent working life of students with intellectual disabilities (ID), a considerable focus should be placed on the development of their technical competence. However, only a few suitable instructional approaches have been presented so far. As constructive play might present an important role in the acquisition of basic constructive skills for students with ID, a training with Lego materials was evaluated in the present study. To examine this approach a sample of students from special schools (N = 46) was divided into three groups. The first group (n =17) received a lego training, the second group (n =13) obtained an inductive reasoning training according to Klauer (1989), and the third group (n =16) received no additional training. A follow-up test was conducted after six months. At post-test, the experimental group showed a significantly higher increase in performance on constructive activities with trained (Lego) and non-trained (Baufix) materials. The effect sizes were in the medium range. Transfer from Lego to Baufix materials indicated that the training did not only induce an increase of performance but also an increase of constructive competence. No long-term treatment effects were observed, leading to considerations of a possible improvement of the Lego training.