Interventions for Young Children with Intellectual Disabilities
An intellectual disability (ID) is "any of the several conditions characterized by subnormal intellectual functioning and impaired adaptive behaviors that are identified during the individual's developmental years" (Britannica 2022). Typically, individuals with intellectual disabilities either have an extra or missing chromosome. To elaborate more, intellectual disabilities can also be described as a genetic disorder "characterized by malformations or malfunctions in any of the body's systems and caused by" an extra or deleted chromosome (Britannica 2017). Intellectual disabilities used to be referred to as "mental retardation," but this term has become outdated for many years due to it developing into a negative meaning (Britannica 2022). It is now usually referred to as either an intellectual disability or "intellectually disabled" (Britannica 2022). Some of the academic struggles of individuals with intellectual disabilities include difficulty with language and literacy development, logical thinking skills, and understanding information. Individuals with intellectual disabilities also tend to struggle with social skills and life skills. Their social struggles include challenging behaviors, decision making skills, reasoning skills, problem-solving skills, "connecting actions with consequences", and "limited responsiveness" (Bhandari 2022; Britannica 2022). The life skills that individuals with intellectual disabilities tend to struggle with include but are not limited to difficulty with motor skills, daily living skills, independence, toileting training, working memory (WM), following directions, speed, and paying attention. While this disability can be diagnosed at birth and before birth through ultrasounds, it is typically diagnosed through standardized intelligence quotient (IQ) tests with an IQ of 70 or below. There are also many different types of intellectual disabilities with the most common type being Down Syndrome. Intellectual disabilities not only affect the cognitive development of its individuals', but many other aspects of their lives as well. Their disability affects themselves along with their families and their teachers in many different ways.
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T There are many different types of interventions that individuals of all ages in the disability community can benefit from when it comes to any of their developmental life skills. In today's world, there are many infants, toddlers, and preschool-aged children enrolled in all-inclusive education classrooms in childcare centers. Early childhood youth with disabilities and developmental delays enrolled in childcare centers tend to receive a variety of related services. The most common type of related service that they tend to receive is called Early Intervention (EI). EI service providers and the children receiving these services work on their developmental areas of improvement through hands-on activities and real-world experiences. Typically, these services will occur through one-on-one push-ins and/or pull-outs and/or at-home visits. Studies have shown that there are some children in the disability community who receive so many EI services from "up to approximately 16 other professional staff members representing a range of other disciplines such as rehabilitation therapists, psychologists, social workers, and so forth, as well as others under the discretion of each state EC intervention system including service coordinators, board-certified behavior analysts, mental health specialists, and EC intervention paraeducators" (Guralnick & Bruder 2016). It is important for preschool teachers, service providers, and families of children in the disability community to collaborate in order to work as a team to fulfill the children's needs. Additional studies have shown that children with disabilities being enrolled in inclusive education classrooms can help to develop and improve their social skills if guided by the teachers, service providers, and families effectively. They can provide children with opportunities for these learning experiences through exposure to real-world situations "such as library story times, swimming lessons, and neighborhood playgrounds" (Guralnick & Bruder 2016).
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There are also numerous different academic interventions that individuals with intellectual disabilities receive. Individuals with intellectual disabilities tend to have visual learning preferences and struggle with applying skills. As a result, the activities in their academic lessons often involve real-world situations in order to practice and improve upon applying skills. An effective intervention for this matter tends to be the laboratory environment, which "provides many options for students to learn and apply skills in practical situations" (Blake, Thoron, & LaRose 2013). To accommodate their visual learning preferences, modeling usually helps by providing "concrete examples and visual demonstration whenever possible" before giving students the chance to complete independent work (Blake, Thoron, & LaRose 2013). "Step-by-step pictures," videos, and/or hands-on activities are typically the most effective ways to accommodate their visual learning preferences (Blake, Thoron, & LaRose 2013). In addition, hands-on activities can help them if they have challenging behaviors as part of their disabilities and if they are kinesthetic learners. For example, if the students are making their own plants in science class, the teacher might model how to put the plant together and take care of it. It is important for students to follow along "performing each step of the task one at a time, while the procedure is being demonstrated" as part of accommodating their visual learning preferences and to show support for their struggles with speed as well. The teacher may also show a picture of a plant with its parts labeled as visuals. Repetitive discussions of this can also help for review, building their background knowledge, and improve their poor WM. While students with intellectual disabilities will need frequent guidance in laboratory environments, it is important for teachers to give them some independent work to complete with fading. This is essential in order for them to be given the opportunity to try to perform the tasks with limited dependence on their teachers in order to improve their skills.
As part of the academic curriculum of the educational placements that students with intellectual disabilities are often enrolled in, they often have classes for learning daily living skills. This is not only because they have a hard time comprehending these skills, but also because they have a hard time generalizing, transferring, and applying them. These daily living skills often include "money concepts, time concepts, independent living skills, self-care and hygiene, community access, leisure activities, and vocational training" (Hunt, Marshall, Turnbull, Turnbull, Wehmeyer, Fey, Warren, Brady, Finestack, Bredin-Oja, Fairchild, Sokol, & Yoder 2007). Besides learning these daily living skills as part of their Life Skills Support curriculum, learning Literacy Education is essential too. A commonly used beneficial literacy intervention for students with intellectual disabilities is called "prelinguistic milieu teaching, a technique that ties instruction to the specific interests and abilities of the individual child" (Fey 2006). In other words, prelinguistic milieu teaching incorporates the interests and abilities of each individual student in the class into literacy lessons. This is a commonly used classroom management strategy that is Universally Designed for Learning (UDL) and especially beneficial to students with any disabilities that affect their learning and social-emotional skills. Incorporating the interests and abilities of students with intellectual disabilities can increase their attention span and motivation to participate, improve their comprehension of the literacy topic since it is something that they like and may have prior knowledge about, and reduce challenging behaviors since their interests and abilities are being valued. Besides these benefits, "this language acquisition instructional strategy also helps support effective self-determination, as a key component of the training is frequent behavior from the student" (Hunt, Marshall, Turnbull, Turnbull, Wehmeyer, Fey, Warren, Brady, Finestack, Bredin-Oja, Fairchild, Sokol, & Yoder 2007).
To reiterate, intellectual disabilities are genetic disorders that cause individuals diagnosed with it to struggle with many academic, social-emotional, and life skills. It is important for families, teachers, and service providers to remember the positive and hard parts of disabilities so that they know how to help their children, students, and clients when they are struggling. This also helps in order for individuals with any disabilities to know that their disabilities do not define them. Families, teachers, and service providers should be very specific in their instructions when explaining things to their child, student, or client with an intellectual disability. Teachers should show inclusion and acceptance of their students with any disabilities when they are one-on-one with them and in front of their families and peers of all abilities. This not only sets a positive example of manners, but it is also the right thing to do. This builds a sense of community and belonging making the classroom a safe space for students of all differences. Families and service providers should do the same. "Although formal, planned learning opportunities have been the foundation of EC intervention, a broadened view of inclusion acknowledges the benefits of learning in a variety of real-world settings as determined by families" (Guralnick & Bruder 2016). It is important to keep all of this information about intellectual disabilities in mind when dealing with anyone with this diagnosis.
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Citations
1. Bhandari, S. (28 September 2022). Intellectual Disability. WebMD. https://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/child-intellectual-disability
2. Blake, C. C., Thoron, A. C., & LaRose, S. E. (2013). TEACHING STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES: INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES. IFAS Extension University of Florida. https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/WC261
3. Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopedia (2 May 2017). chromosomal disorder. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/chromosomal-disorder
4. Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopedia (1 November 2022). intellectual disability. https://www.britannica.com/science/intellectual/disability
5. Guralnick, M. J. & Bruder, M. B. (July/September 2016). Early Childhood Inclusion in the United States: Goals, Current Status, and Future Directions. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Early Childhood Intervention: Infants & Young Children. https://journals.lww.com/iycjournal/Fulltext/2016/07000/Early_Childhood_Inclusion_in_the_United_States_.2.aspx
6. Hunt, N., Marshall, K., Turnbull, A., Turnbull, R., Wehmeyer, M. L., Fey, M. E., Warren, S. F., Brady, N., Finestack, L. H., Bredin-Oja, S. L., Fairchild, M., Sokol, S., & Yoder, P. J. (2006 & 2007). Intellectual Disabilities. Project IDEAL: Informing and Designing Education For All Learners. https://www.projectidealonline.org/v/intellectual-disabilities/
7. Lawler, M. (20 Sept. 2022). Down Syndrome: Treatment, Therapies, Services. https://www.everydayhealth.com/down-syndrome/treatments/
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