Clinical applications of the VIA Inventory of Strengths with Individuals with Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities

ABSTRACT

Strengths-based clinical practices are critical for supporting the wellbeing of individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. The VIA Inventory of Strengths (‘VIA Survey’) is an assessment grounded in positive psychology that may contribute to strengths-based practices. To identify how this assessment is used in clinical practice with individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities, we conducted focus groups (n = 15) with clinicians who have used this survey with this population. We also asked individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (n = 36) to comment on the process of completing the VIA Survey. We found that clinicians utilize the VIA Survey with individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disability to foster self-esteem and self-understanding, provide a framework for understanding strengths, communicate across service systems and shape strengths-based interventions. Individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities also endorsed use of the survey to increase their self-knowledge and self-esteem. Future research should address accessibility of the survey to foster greater uptake and propose standard protocols for independent survey completion.

KEYWORDS:

• Positive psychology
• self-report
• patient reported outcome measures
• strengths-based practice
• intellectual disability
• developmental disability
• mental health

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dan Tomasulo, PhD and Ryan Niemiec, PsyD for their input on the conceptualization of this study. Thank you to the participants for their time and sharing their expertise.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Please contact the first author if you are interested in working with the data reported in this manuscript. The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://doi.org/10.10605/OSF.IO/TPA6U.

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badge for Open Materials. The materials are openly accessible at https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2022.2036797.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the National Research Consortium on Mental Health in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.