A new protocol to assess the subjective wellbeing of adolescents with intellectual disability

Subjective well-being refers to an individual's satisfaction or happiness with their life. The construct is often measured with the Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI), which has been adapted for children of different ages, and adults with an intellectual disability (ID). However, there is no subjective well-being measure for adolescents with an ID. This study reports on the PWI-School Children with Intellectual Disability (PWI-SCwID), which trialled a pretesting Likert training protocol to enable valid completion of the questionnaire. From this, it was aimed that the subjective well-being of adolescents with ID would be compared to adults and adolescents without ID, and adults with ID. The PWI-SCwID was administered to 42 adolescents with ID. They had a mean age of 15.86 years (SD = 1.70) and 52% were female. Participants were recruited from special education schools and dance classes for adolescents with Down syndrome. Thirty-seven participants (88%) validly completed the PWI-SCwID. Of the 17 participants with Down syndrome, who are most likely to have moderate to severe intellectual disability, 76% returned valid questionnaires. Comparison of the current sample with other samples of adolescents and adults without ID found no significant differences in subjective well-being. Adults with ID from another study reported lower happiness with their standard of living than the current sample. The higher completion rate reported in this study is likely due to the implementation of training protocols that taught and assessed the participants' ability to use a Likert-type scale. The high completion rate of participants with Down syndrome suggest that the revised protocols enable the collection of well-being data previously believed to be unattainable. The implication is that evaluating policy and interventions may consider the subjective well-bein