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Learners with
Intellectual
Disability
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INTELLECTUA
L DISABILITY
This term refers to a group of conditions caused by various genetic
disorders and infections. It also significantly reduce ability to
understand new or complex information, learn new skills and to cope
independently including social functioning.
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Intellectual disability:
It is a very challenging condition to diagnose in infants and young
children. It refers to a below average intellectual function or (IQ)
and lack of difficulty in acquiring skills necessary for daily
living(also known as adaptive behaviour). Because this can range
from mild to profound, a child night develop more slowly
compared to children of the same age or he/she might need
assistance in performing simple tasks.
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The
cracked
pot
The story illustrates the dignity and value
of a person and each of us has it’s own
uniqueness but sometimes they were hard
to recognize.
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Signs of intellectual disability

● Delay in rolling over, sitting up or walking

● Delay in speech development

● Behavioral problems such as tantrums or hurting self /others

● Delay in learning how to dress or feed self and potty training

● Difficulty in making friends or interacting with schoolmates

● Difficulty in remembering important things, reading or problem solving

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Causes of intellectual disability

● Genetic or metabolic condition such as Down’s angelman, and fragile X syndrome

● Prenatal illness such as infections, hypertension, pre-eclampsia and malnutrition can interfere with

fetal brain development

● Drug abuse and alchohol intake during pregnancy carry a consequence in the developing fetus

● Preterm birth or a difficult delivery that affected the oxygen delivery to the brain

● Infections after birth that can affect the brain such as meningitis, measles, etc.

● Traumatic head injury such as those seen in child abuse, vehicular accidents, etc.
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How is it diagnosed?
The diagnosis is usually made before the child turns 18. There are usually
three things that we have to look into when diagnosing intellectual
disability: parent interview, observation of the child and formal testing.
Cognitive ability or intellectual function is measured by IQ assessment;
reasoning skills, problem-solving and academic learning. Adaptive skills are
measured by standardized and culturally appropriate tests like socialization,
personal independence and communication. If the child has only one deficit,
he/ she is not considered intellectually disabled.
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CHARACTERISTICS
OF LEARNERS WITH
INTELLECTUAL
DISABILITY
This is where you section ends. Duplicate this set of slides as many times you need to go over all your sections.
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ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
● Learners identified with intellectual disabilities fail to keep up grade-level of peers in
developing academic skills. These learners are slow in learning to read and in learning
basic math skills. These learners also have delayed language skills which also effects other
academic areas such as writing, spelling, and science. (Taylor, Richards, & Brady, 2005)
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COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE
Attention:
Learners have difficulty in attention such as they should be “Orienting to a task means they should focus on the direction of the task whereas they should have selective attention means that they
should only focus on the relevant tasks not on

an unimportant tasks and sustained attention means that continue the task for the period of time. But student with intellectual difficulties can’t attained these attentions.

Memory:
These learners also have difficulty in remembering the information for example, they may have problem in remembering the math facts or spellings or if they remember this information one day,
they may forget it next day.

Generalization:
Final area in which learners with intellectual disabilities may have difficulty is to generalize the information to other material or settings for example he may learn new word in one subject area
but in learning the same word in another subject may have difficulty. (Smith et al., 2004)
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SOCIAL SKILL PERFORMANCE

Cognitive characteristics of learners with intellectual disabilities can also cause the difficulty interacting
socially. For example, low level of cognitive development and slow language development can cause a
student to have problem in understanding the verbal communications and expectations likewise difficulty
in attention and difficulty with memory can also effect the social interactions of learners in such a way
that he may not able to attend the important parts of social interactions, maintaining attention, and
holding important things which they observe in their short-term memory. (Beirne-Smith et al., 2006).
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Classification and types of

intellectual disability
100 %

80 %

60 %

40 %

20 %

0%
Moderate Severe Profound
50-70 35-49 less than 20
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Impacts of intellectual disability

The characteristics and impact of a person’s intellectual disability will vary
depending on the cause. There are a number of common characteristics
that may have a significant impact on an individual’s learning, including:
● difficulty understanding new information
● difficulties with communication and social skills
● slow cognitive processing time
● difficulty in the sequential processing of information
● difficulty comprehending abstract concepts.
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TEACHING STRATEGIES

It is important to know that despite difficulties in a learning environment learners with intellectual
disability can and do have the capacity to acquire and use new information. There is a range of
inclusive teaching strategies that can assist all learners to learn but there are some specific strategies
that are useful in teaching a group which includes learners with intellectual disability:

-Provide an outline of what will be taught - highlight key concepts and provide opportunities to practice new skills and concepts.

-Provide reading lists well before the start of a course so that reading can begin early.

-Consider tailoring reading lists and provide guidance to key texts. Allow work to be completed on an in-depth study of a few texts rather than a broad study of many.

-Whenever you are introducing procedures or processes or giving directions, for example in a laboratory or computing exercise, ensure that stages or sequences are made
clear and are explained in verbal as well as written form.

-Learners may benefit from using assistive technology.

-Use as many verbal descriptions as possible to supplement material presented on blackboard or overhead

-Use clear, succinct, straightforward language.

-Reinforce learning by using real-life examples and environments.

-Present information in a range of formats – handouts, worksheets, overheads, videos – to meet a diversity of learning styles.

-Use a variety of teaching methods so that learners are not constrained by needing to acquire information by reading only. Where possible, present material
diagrammatically - in lists, flow charts, concept maps etc.
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-Keep diagrams uncluttered and use colour wherever appropriate to distinguish and highlight.

-Ensure that lists of technical/professional jargon which learners will need to learn are available early
in the course.

-Recording lectures will assist those learners who have handwriting or coordination problems and
those who write slowly as well as those who have a tendency to mishear or misquote.

-Learners will be more likely to follow correctly the sequence of material in a lecture if they are able to
listen to the material more than once.

-Wherever possible, ensure that key statements and instructions are repeated or highlighted in some
way.

-One-to-one tutoring in subjects may be important; this can include peer tutoring.

-Learners may benefit from having oral rather than written feedback on their written assignments.

-It may be helpful for learners with intellectual disability to have an individual orientation to laboratory
equipment or computers to minimize anxiety.
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Assessment Strategies
Learners with intellectual disability may need particular adjustments to assessment tasks. Once you have a clear
picture of how the disability impacts on learning, you can consider alternative assessment strategies. In considering
alternative forms of assessment, equal opportunity is not a guaranteed outcome, it is the objective. You are not
expected to lower standards to accommodate learners with disability but rather are required to give them a
reasonable opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned:

-Allow extensions to assignment deadlines

-Use technology to record learners work, e.g. digital photography, tape and video.
-Learners may take longer to organize thoughts and sequence material. They will benefit from discussing their outlines, with
particular attention being paid to appropriate relationships and connections between points.
-Encourage the student to submit an early draft of assignments to allow the opportunity for feedback to the student as a formative
process.
-Learners with an intellectual disability will need extra time in an examination for reading and analyzing questions and for planning
their answers.
-Some learners will request that examination questions be read to them. Some learners may prefer to dictate their answers to a
scribe. They will need a venue which is quiet and distraction-free.
-Keep short your written examination instructions and sentences within examination questions. Questions using bullet points, lists
or distinct parts are more likely to be correctly interpreted.
-Because learners with intellectual disability find it difficult to read multiple choice questions in a way that allows them to appreciate
subtle changes in the arrangement of words, short answer questions will be a better test of their knowledge.
-Learners may benefit from an exam timetable that features a number of days between exams to assist in exam preparation.
-Many learners with intellectual disability are chronic misspells and use dictionaries only with great difficulty.
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