Educational Intervention For Children With Intellectual Disabilities – Being Parents

Educational intervention with children with intellectual disabilities is fundamental to achieving an inclusive school. Currently, there are various encouraging measures of attention to diversity:

• The integral development of all students.
• The right to a decent education in ordinary schools or, in exceptional cases, in specialized centers.

Educational intervention with children with intellectual disabilities

Students with special educational needs associated with intellectual disability have the opportunity to have a series of specific resources, such as:

• Personal support
• Extraordinary measures
• Adaptation of school programs

• Flexibility
• Individualized attention

They aim to ensure that these students can overcome barriers to learning and receive fair and equitable treatment. Thus, the main people responsible for teaching these children in a regular school are:

• The tutor teacher
• The support teacher

Educational intervention of the tutor teaching staff

The class tutor is responsible for creating a climate of diversity by promoting knowledge, mutual respect and acceptance of differences. To this end, it must implement a series of measures adapted to all the learning levels of the children in the class, according to an inclusive methodology. In this sense, a choice can be made:

• Adapt methodologies and materials to the needs of all students.
• Perform flexible groupings.
• Offer children with intellectual disabilities activities similar to those of their peers, but with some modifications, which amount to:
  • Give them more time to complete tasks.
  • Simplify the content or presentation.
  • Give step-by-step explanations.
  • Provide help and advice.
  • Reduce the number of tasks required.
• Create a work routine in which these types of students are autonomous and which trains them in self-determination.
• Devote more time to specific goals or content that is important to all students, but especially those with intellectual disabilities. It is therefore practical to work on the development of the following areas:
  • Communication
  • Reading and writing
  • Psychomotricity
  • Ability to use basic numbers and operations
  • Ability to build interpersonal relationships
• Establish, in exceptional cases, significant adaptations of study programs. These consist of:
  • Elimination of content and objectives considered essential
  • Modification of evaluation criteria

In addition, for all of this to be effective, it is essential that teachers avoid the use of negative labels and comparisons. They also need to know how to deal with the possible frustrations of students with intellectual disabilities in order to prevent possible aggressive or self-inflicted behavior.

Educational intervention of support teachers

Support teachers are of great relevance to the learning of people with intellectual disabilities. Indeed, they are often the mainstay of their teaching at school. They are in continuous communication with the classroom tutor to fulfill their educational strengthening functions.

Thus, the teachers of Therapeutic Pedagogy (PT) and Auditory and Linguistic Pedagogy (PAL) are in charge of:

• Select, develop and adapt the teaching material.
• Facilitate the assimilation of knowledge.
• Carry out individualized educational intervention programs.

Likewise, a pupil with an intellectual disability who does not have personal autonomy needs the help of a school counselor during the school day to help him acquire these skills.

That is to say, its main function is to provide educational support, but not pedagogy, by developing tasks related to:

• Autonomy
• Accessibility
• Shifting
• Health
• security
• Attention, vigilance and care

In summary, having a pupil with an intellectual disability at school implies the implementation of a specific and personalized educational intervention.