The top-down approach places emphasis on teaching target skills selected from the top level of motor skill developmental sequence. This approach is believed to be one of the useful strategies for teaching individuals with disabilities. However, few investigations have been found to examine the effects of this approach in adapted physical education. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the effects of a top-down program on teaching young adults with intellectual disabilities volleyball skills. A pretest-posttest two-group experimental design was employed. Participants were 20 young adults with mild intellectual disabilities, 11 females and 9 males, ages ranging from 17 to 25 years. Participants in the experimental group (5 females, 4 males; M age = 20.78) were taught volleyball skills using a top-down program, in which 3 task-analyzed skills (serve, pass, and set) were taught with two 60-min training sessions per week for 10 weeks. Those participants in the control group (6 females, 5 males; M age = 21.36) were involved in physical activities using low-body parts only without any volleyball skill training. Each participant in both groups was tested based on the task analysis of each skill in the first session (pretest) and the last session (posttest). A 2 (group) x 2 (test) analysis of repeated measures design involving multiple dependent variables (serve, pass, and set) was used to analyze the overall difference between groups over tests on dependent variables. Follow-up univariate tests, 2 (group) x 2 (test) analyses of repeated measures designs involving a single dependent variable, were computed after a significant difference was found in the overall test. Result of the overall test revealed a significant difference between groups over tests on dependent variables, LRATLO(3, 16) = 25.28, p < .01, Eta2 = .83, noting that both groups differed in their performance over tests on at least one of the dependent variables. Results of the follow-up tests noted significant differences between groups over tests on serve (F[1, 18] = 32.02, p < .01, Eta2 = .64), pass (F[1, 18] = 13.29, p < .01, Eta2 = .43), and set (F[1, 18] = 39.65, p < .01, Eta2 = .69), indicating that groups changes at different rates over tests on skills. Specifically, the experimental group increased performance significantly, while the control group did not have any significant changes. These results indicated that the top-down program used in this investigation was effective in teaching individuals with mild intellectual disabilities three volleyball skills.Keyword(s): adapted physical activity, alternative programming, athletics/sports