Intellectual Disability

Definition
“…significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.”-IDEA

Causes
Some of the causes of intellectual disabilities include: genetic conditions, problems during pregnancy, problems at birth, and health problems.

Incidence
Intellectual disabilities affect roughly 1 in 10 who need special education.

Resources
http://nichcy.org/disability/specific/intellectual
http://www.aaidd.org/
http://www.thearc.org/page.aspx?pid=2453
http://www.intellectualdisability.info/
*http://www.projectidealonline.org/intellectualDisabilities.php

Teaching Strategies

To fully address the limitations in intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior often experienced by individuals with intellectual disabilities, teachers need to provide direct instruction in a number of skill areas outside of the general curriculum. These skills are more functional in nature but are absolutely essential for the future independence of the individual. Additional skill areas include money concepts, time concepts, independent living skills, self-care and hygiene, community access, leisure activities, and vocational training. Students with intellectual disabilities learn these skills most effectively in the settings or activities in which they will be asked to apply these skills. Once the skills are mastered, then additional environments can be added to work towards generalization.

General curriculum areas should not be neglected however, and there are some promising practices to help support these students in a number of academic areas. One effective early literacy strategy with these students is prelinguistic milieu teaching (Fey, et.al, 2006), a technique that ties instruction to the specific interests and abilities of the individual child. This language acquisition instructional strategy also helps support effective self-determination, as a key component of the training is frequent requesting behavior from the student.

Breaking down larger tasks into their specific component parts can be an effective technique for teaching any number of skills to students with intellectual disabilities. More complex concepts or activities can then be taught over time, and as the student masters one component of the task, another is added to the routine. This type of task analysis can be taught using a variety of instructional supports, from physical and verbal prompting to observational learning. As always, the specific instructional strategies and materials used with the student should be aligned to the student’s own interests and strengths.

Useful strategies for teaching students with intellectual disabilities include, but are not limited to, the following techniques:

• Teach one concept or activity component at a time
• Teach one step at a time to help support memorization and sequencing
• Teach students in small groups, or one-on-one, if possible
• Always provide multiple opportunities to practice skills in a number of different settings
• Use physical and verbal prompting to guide correct responses, and provide specific verbal praise to reinforce these responses*