Chapter 8: Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
What are the Characteristics of Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities?
How Do Learners with Intellectual Disabilities Receive Their Education?
What Are the Perspectives of Parents and Families
What are Intellectual Disabilities?
How Are Intellectual Disabilities Identified?
What Are Recommended Educational Practices for Students with Intellectual Disabilities?
The field of study has been getting more progressive and humane.
"As is true for some other students with disabilities , the language that describes students with intellectual disabilities requires clarification."
Federal: significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child's performance.
AAIDD: Mental retardation is a disability characterized by significant limitations both intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills. Originating before 18.
Prevalence?
Less than 1% and decreasing in prevalence.
Causes of Mental Retardation:
Prenatal Causes: Down Syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome, Prader-Willi Syndrome, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome , Phenylketonuria, Toxoplasmosis
Perinatal Causes: Premature, Birth Injury
Postnatal Causes: Encephalitis, Lead Poisoning, Brain Injury
Cognitive and Academic:
On the lower half of the IQ bellcurve
Limited working memory
Poor ability to generalize
Difficulties with metacognition
Low motivation and learned-helplessness
Language delays
Need to work harder and practice longer to develop academic skills
Social, Behavior, and Emotional Characteristics:
Difficulties in social relationships
Deficits in adaptive behaviors
occasionally extreme behaviors depending on type
more loneliness
Physical and Medical Characteristics:
Often less physically fit
Assessment of Intellectual Functioning, Adaptive Behavior, and of Medical Factors
To be eligible:
Does the students intelligence, as measured on a formal individualized assessment, fall at least 2 standard deviations below the mean? 70 or below
Does the student display deficits in adaptive behavior?
Do the student's characteristics adversely affect educational performance? #
Most are outside of a general education classroom more than 60% of the day.
Over 80% are outside of a general education classroom more than 20% of their day.
Usually identified very young.
In primary and secondary education:
Life skills curriculum, applied academic skills, community-based instruction, job coaching, inclusive practices
Working
Task Analysis
Peer-mediated instruction
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Focus is on parents as educated partners
Acceptance and Inclusion
What are the Trends and Issues Affecting the Field of Intellectual Disabilities?
Which curriculum is appropriate?
Is high-stakes standardized testing appropriate?
How do we implement self-determination?