SOARing in the Kitchen: Building Confidence Through Baking: A Case Study on Empowering Adolescents with Disabilities in the Kitchen

This study aimed to understand the influence of a baking program on the self-confidence levels of adolescents with disabilities. There is limited research that highlights baking as an effective intervention to target self-confidence within this population. Baking can be a beneficial intervention due to its resulting improvements in interpersonal skills, relationship building, confidence, and quality of life. Improving confidence levels in adolescents with disabilities can be beneficial to improve performance in and outside of the classroom and increase quality of life. The study utilized a quantitative quasi-experimental single group pretest/posttest design. The General Self-Efficacy Scale was administered to participants before and after the 5-week baking program. The scale was completed in person and adapted as necessary depending on participants’ needs prior to the start of the baking program. Results indicate that the baking program was successful in improving self-efficacy, with participant scores by improving nearly three standard deviations. While no one specific question accounted for these significant changes, there was a positive association between how participants responded to “manage difficult problems” and “handling them” before and after the intervention. As a result, the findings from this study suggest that baking programs have the potential to improve self-efficacy in adolescents with disabilities and contribute to developing the confidence needed to attain future goals and independence.