DNE: Lecture 13**

• Intellectual Disabilities: An intellectual deficit that limits a person’s ability to learn at an expected level and function in daily life
• Deficits in adaptive functioning

   Communication

   Social skills

   Personal independence at home or in community settings

   School or work functioning
• Global Developmental Delay

  • Diagnosed when an individual fails to meet expected developmental milestones in several areas of intellectual functioning, and applies to individuals who are unable to undergo systematic assessments of intellectual functioning, including children who are too young to participate in standardized testing.
• Causes

  Biological:

   Genetic/chromosomal conditions

  -Down syndrome

  -Fragile X syndrome

   Birth defects

   Fetal alcohol syndrome
• Causes

  Environmental factors:

   Injury

   Infections

   Trauma
• Causes

  Psycho-social causes:

   Malnutrition

   Chronic abuse

   Physical and emotional neglect

   Lack of opportunity
• Physical characteristics

   Small head

   Low nasal bridge

   Small eye openings

   Thin upper lip
• Learning characteristics

   Attention and information processing

  -Poor concentration in formal learning situation

  -Easily distracted

  -Reduced ability to learn from observation and imitation

   Memory

  -Difficulty storing info in long term memory

  -Inability to link new information with what they have learned

   Reasoning

  -Poor problem solving skills

  -Poor planning

  -Poor reasoning Learning characteristics of ID

   Language

  -Lacks adequate language skills

  -Slow acquisition rate for language

   Generalization

  -Unable to apply skills to new settings, people, situations
• General principles of teaching

  1) Teaching plans should be suitable to whole class while catering for individual differences

  2) Individualized educational programs

  4) Long term objectives should be broken down into smaller targets

  6) Use of appropriate teaching materials and aids

  7) Use of situational activities
• Teachers should avoid…

  1) Offering limited new learning opportunities

  2) Not giving a long enough response time for the child

  3) Providing corrections too quickly

  4) Criticizing the child’s failure to complete the given tasks

  5) Not giving enough feedback

  6) Asking questions that are too easy to answer
• Teaching strategies in classroom

  1) Teaching procedures – use demonstrations, prompting, assessment standards

  2) Instructions – simple, specific, consistent, comprehensible

  3) Use teaching aids – real objects, models, pictures, videos

  4)Multi-sensory training – use of different senses (ex. visual, auditory, tactile)

  5)Teach at appropriate pace and appropriate content
• Memory TEACHING STRATEGIES!

  - Repetition

  - Teach memory skills (e.g. recall information, auditory memory)

  - Teach using simple terms
• Reasoning TEACHING STRATEGIES!

  - Teach to link information (e.g. cause and effect, sequencing)

  - Teach choice
• Language skills TEACHING STRATEGIES!

  • Development of verbal and non-verbal communication skills
  • Functional communication skills
  • Speech Language Therapy
• Generalization of skills TEACHING STRATEGIES!

  • Teach in a natural environment
  • Use multiple exemplars
  • Different teachers
• Peer support

   Arrange for patient and helpful peer to sit next to child
• Notes on Social skills

  Frequent opportunities for students to learn and socialize with typically developing peers

   Directly teach social skills such as turn taking, social distance, reciprocal conversation, etc.

   Break down social skills to verbal and non-verbal components

   Role-play situations
• Home school collaboration

   Support and promote culture of mutual care and support

   Parent training and support group

   Sibling support project