Special Education for Children with Intellectual Disability

Intellectual Disability or Mental Retardation is considerably sub-average brain functioning, existing from the early infancy or birth and results into limitations of the capability of conducting normal activities for the everyday living.

Definition: Intellectual disability, also known as “mental retardation,” is described by the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) as “considerably sub-average common intellectual functioning, offered concurrently [altogether] with the deficits in adaptive actions and clear during the development period which adversely affects child’s educational operation.” Two main components are there in this definition: student’s IQ as well as his or her ability to work independently generally known as the adaptive behaviour.

Common Traits of Intellectual Disability
According to the NICHCY (National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities), the IQ under 70-75 specifies an intellectual disability. The deficits of “adaptive behaviour” quoted by IDEA prove to be trickier to assess. Factors considered consist of the ability to comprehend and take part in the conversations, to understand and pursue social norms as well as to do activities like getting dressed or using the bathroom. NICHCY clarifies that the sources of intellectual disabilities differ from pregnancy problems and complications during birth to general conditions (like fragile X-syndrome or Down syndrome) and physical problems early in the life, together with diseases like measles, contact with toxic substances like mercury or lead, etc.

Many traits may point towards the intellectual disability. The NICHD (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) has listed the following early indicators:

• Delay in reaching developmental milestones like talking and sitting up
• The problem in comprehending conventional social behaviours or understanding the action consequences 
• The problem in remembering things
• Weaker problem-solving skills

Mentally retarded children lack social and theoretical abilities. They can’t match well with the others because of language underdevelopment and face difficulty in education as well as dealing with everyday actions. Their IQ ranking is lower than average however this doesn’t indicate that these kids can’t learn how to look after themselves. The level of learning relies on the problem’s difficulty level. Majority of children can be taught a sufficient amount if suitable care and the environment is given to them. They can live a partly independent life.

Need for Special Educational Curriculum for Them
The children who are suffering from the intellectual disability need a special education curriculum. Certain other activities like music, dance, yoga, art & craft etc. may be introduced for these children so that they can understand how to work together while doing the activities. They must also get physical training that can include games, sports, and drills. Their interaction skills may be improved using the sign language. This entire procedure of conveying education to them relies on the aim to make these children as much autonomous as possible. Rather than offering them studious knowledge, they need to be taught everyday activities and skills.

The myth is that intellectually disabled children can only be educated if they are trained together in an institution. They need care and inclusion to find out the ways of autonomous living. The government also promises educational and more services for them.

Their wide-ranging educational plans need to be developed through a team of paediatricians, physicians, speech therapists, and adolescent psychiatrist with the help of school authorities and family as per the retardation level. Before you introduce the child in a classroom, his mental issues should be tackled properly. No weakness should be build up in the child because it can obstruct the enthusiasm of learning. Great care should be taken while choosing whether a child should be sent to a normal school or should be sent to any special school. At times, some wrong decisions may overburden his capabilities and put extra strain on the limitations also. Despite offering academic awareness, they need to be taught activity modification methods and must be vocationally trained for the occupations as well as live autonomously.

In India, significant prevalence is there for mental retardation with urban and rural areas. According to the Persons with Disabilities Act, there needs to be obligatory support for early detection, prevention, employment, education, and personal facilities with psychological retardation.

Special education has become one type of treatment for a person suffering from intellectual disabilities. All these children need services of different experts. Special education may aid in assimilating the skills and knowledge from different disciplines and may join them. Special educators may prove to become the most important and inventive persons for children dealing with intellectual disability problems.

Educational Challenges
Being parents you can have doubts about education and the long-term future of your child. Teachers can definitely see that giving education to students having intellectual disabilities associated with many challenges. However, the fact is that they will study but they will take longer time. Clearly, intellectual disability produces a lot of educational challenges which must be defeated. These include:

• Difficulty in completing difficult tasks
• Improper behaviour
• Limited vocabulary
• The problem in understanding new thoughts

Tips for Parents and Teachers
Educating people who are suffering from intellectual disabilities needs patience and awareness. Awareness engages a serious effort of choosing words and activities wisely. For example, if a student shows artistic talent, support him or her through offering assignments related to the skill. Parents can aid by suggesting associated activities which their children may use as hobbies. Additionally, carefully choosing your words can reduce possible problems sourced by students’ restricted vocabularies.

Patience is an essential part of addressing the above mentioned educational tests. You will probably need to check lessons or fix student’s improper behaviour many times. Another way of making the repetition more efficient is to convoy verbal instructions with extra cues; for instance, show pictures for repeating spoken directions.

To fight difficulty in completing compound tasks, NICHCY recommends dividing these jobs into smaller steps. This organization also suggests providing instant feedback for helping a child to learn while he or she performs a step properly.

One last advice does not inevitably correspond to some particular academic barrier however rather attends to the educational focus, at least with higher school level. Examine student’s skills to choose how to carry on with the transitioning to maturity. For example, do the students having the capabilities which will allow the students to survive on their own? If yes, the later years of school need to concentrate on enhancing the ability which will let them live without help.

Effective Teaching Techniques for People Having Intellectual Disabilities

Individuals having intellectual disabilities advantage from same teaching techniques used for teaching people with the other learning disputes. It includes studying disabilities, autism, and hyperactivity disorder.

One such technique is breaking the learning jobs in smaller steps. Every learning job is introduced, with one step with one time. It avoids overwhelming the students. When the student masters one step, then the next step is initiated. That is a step-wise, progressive, and learning approach. This is an attribute of several learning models. Only one difference is size and number of chronological steps.

The second technique is to transform the approach of teaching. Extensive verbal directions and theoretical lectures are useless teaching techniques for most of the audiences. Majority of people are kinesthetic students. It means they study best when doing an assignment "hands-on." It is contrary to thinking about doing it in the abstract. The hands-on tactic is particularly useful for students suffering from Intellectual Disability. They study best while information is real and observed. For instance, there are many ways of teaching the gravity concept. Teachers may talk about gravity theoretically. They can explain the force for the gravitational pull. Secondly, teachers might show how the gravity works through dropping something. Thirdly, teachers may ask the students directly about the gravity by doing an exercise. Students might also be told to jump or drop the pen. Majority of students keep more details from experiencing the gravity firsthand. The concrete gravity experience is much easier to recognize than theoretical explanations.

Third, people having Intellectual Disability do best with learning environments where visual support is used. It might consist of pictures, charts, and graphs. The visual tools are valuable in helping the students to recognize what actions are projected of them. For example, using the charts of mapping students' development is extremely effective. Charts may also be used as the means of offering positive support for suitable and on-task performance.

A fourth teaching technique is to offer direct and urgent feedback. Individuals having Intellectual Disability need instant feedback. It allows them to create a connection between their activities and the teacher's response. Delay in offering feedback makes that hard to make a connection between the source and effect. Therefore, the knowledge point can be missed.

While we teach children having intellectual disabilities, we should remember many factors. Initially, we should set goals which are most significant for the children. Learning names of planets cannot be as significant as learning on how the plants grow. Then we should make the materials as well as set the environment in order that it supports a child’s learning. In conclusion, we should use a few teaching methods for teaching and motivating the children to learn. Let’s explore some efficient teaching methods for students having intellectual disabilities.

• Baby Steps: Children suffering from intellectual disabilities should be learnt using baby steps. Each skill, task, or activity should be crashed into smaller baby steps. The children are taught one step at one time. Gradually, they learn to merge the baby steps for learning a better concept. For instance, we won’t teach the concept of the red colour within one day, so initially, we will teach sorting of red and then matching of red, after that identifying the red, and then naming the red and lastly generalizing the red. Using that way try to break all skills into smaller baby steps.
• Chaining: Chaining is a procedure of breaking the task into smaller steps and teaches them in a chronological way. This is generally used for teaching everyday living skills. For instance, we initially teach a child for holding the pant with both hands, and we teach him to grip it and take it down on his legs. Subsequently, we teach to hold that, bring that down to the legs, as well as put a leg inside. The procedure is named forward chaining. In backward chaining, you teach children last steps first. We complete the activity for the child as well as allow the children to do last steps on their own. After that, we do this movement until the second last step. In that way, a child does some activities and we do less till child can do the entire activity to his own.
• Group Learning: Group learning is among the most efficient teaching methods for students having intellectual disabilities. That is when you bring the children together with the group of teaching different skills. Children usually do better while they are within the group. Behavioural difficulties are fewer and children encourage each other. One difficulty of the group learning is you need sufficient hands for helping children learn mutually.
• Hands-on Learning: Hands-on learning is the procedure of user actions and on the tasks of teaching skills. All the children particularly children having intellectual impairments study best using this procedure. An example might be to do science experiments and discover science concepts. One more idea is using play dough plus making letter shapes and learn letters. Hands-on learning is an enormous way of learning math.
• Play-Based Learning: Play-based learning is while we use play activities for teaching cognitive skills. For instance, if a child is playing with cars, we can just sit there and play too. During our play, we use statements like “Can you give that to me? May I play with a red car?” In that way, we help children to learn skills while they are playing.
• Positive Reinforcement: Positive reinforcement is reinforcing the children positively when they learn new skills or practice or do known skills. It is an enormous way of motivating children having intellectual disabilities. Employ reinforcements which are suitable for the children.

These are only a few efficient teaching tactics for students having intellectual disabilities. The finest way to teach is understanding the child, understanding his capabilities and his requirements.