I.

Intellectual Disability

Intellectual disability (ID), once called mental retardation, is characterized by below-average intelligence
or mental ability and a lack of skills necessary for day-to-day living. People with intellectual disabilities
can and do learn new skills,

but they learn them more slowly. There are varying degrees of intellectual disability, from mild to
profound.

Someone with intellectual disability has limitations in two areas. These areas are:

Intellectual functioning. Also known as IQ, this refers to a person’s ability to learn, reason, make
decisions, and solve problems.

Adaptive behaviors. These are skills necessary for day-to-day life, such as being able to communicate
effectively, interact with others, and take care of oneself.

Causes of Intellectual Disability

1.Genetic Conditions

2.Complications during pregnancy

3.Problems during childbirth

4.Illness or Injury

Four levels of Intellectual Disability

Mild

Moderate

Severe

Profound
Strategies for teaching students with intellectual disabilities include:

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.

B. Global Development Delay

Global developmental delay is an umbrella term used when children are significantly delayed in their
cognitive and physical development. It can be diagnosed when a child is delayed in one or more
milestones, categorised into motor skills ,speech , cognitive skills, and social and emotional
development. There is usually a specific condition which causes this delay, such as Fragile X syndrome or
other chromosomal abnormalities . However, it is sometimes difficult to identify this underlying
condition. Other terms associated with this condition are failure to thrive (which focuses on lack of
weight gain and physical development), intellectual

disability (which focuses on intellectual deficits and the changes they cause to development) and
developmental disability (which can refer to both intellectual and physical disability altering
development).
Five areas of skill development

cognitive skills

social and emotional skills

speech and language skills

fine and gross motor skills

daily living activities

Teaching to Target the Developmental Domains

A student with a diagnosis of global developmental delays should have an individualized education plan
(IEP) that addresses their areas of delay and contains goals specific to each domain in which they have a
delay.

If you are a part of the IEP development team, you should be using assessments that compare the
student's performance to performance typical of children of the same age. The team then works
together to develop appropriate goals.

If a student enters your class with an IEP already in place, you should familiarize yourself with the
student's current level of performance and the goals and objectives that are in place.

When considering teaching a student with delays, keep in mind the behavior and performance that is
expected of a typically developing student of the same age. Your strategies and interventions will

vary depending on the age/grade level of the students you teach. Now, let's take a look at the different
areas and some strategies you can utilize in your classroom.

C. Unspecified Intellectual Disability

the diagnosis made when an individual is presumed to have mental retardation but is too severely
impaired or uncooperative
to be evaluated through the use of standard intelligence tests and adaptive behavior measures. The
DSM–IV–TR designation is mental retardation, severity unspecified.

II. Communication Disorder

A child with a communication disorder has trouble communicating with others. He or she may not
understand or make the sounds of speech. The child may also struggle with word choice, word order, or
sentence structure.

Language disorder is characterised by the fact that individuals suffering it have difficulties persisting in
time to learn and use normally the linguistic communication with others in all its modalities (oral,
written, sign language, Braille system, etc.). Difficulties can be more important in producing or

receiving language, although some individuals have problems in both processes.

Speech-sound disorders. A child has a hard time expressing words clearly past a certain age.

Childhood-onset fluency disorder. This is

also known as stuttering. It starts in

childhood and can last throughout life.

Social communication disorder. A child has trouble with verbal and nonverbal

communication that is not caused by

thinking problems.

Causes

Some causes of communication problems include hearing loss, neurological disorders, brain injury, vocal
cord injury, autism, intellectual disability, drug abuse, physical impairments such as cleft lip or
palate, emotional or psychiatric disorders, and developmental disorders. The DSM-5 generally separates
distinct medical and neurological conditions from communication disorders.

Unspecified Communication Disorder (UCD) is a DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, fifth edition), diagnosis assigned to individuals who are experiencing

symptoms of a Communication Disorder. This diagnostic category applies to a clinical presentations in

which symptoms of a communication disorder are present, but do not meet a sufficient number of the

diagnostic criteria for a communication

disorder to warrant a more specific diagnosis. The symptoms have a significant impact on social,
occupational/educational/interpersonal, or other critical areas of functioning.

More specific teaching strategies for

students with communication disorders

include:

Allowing more time for a student to complete activities, assignments and tests.

Having a student sit near you to easily meet her learning needs.

Discussing possible areas of difficulty and working with the student to implement

accommodations.

Always asking before providing assistance, and using positive reinforcement when the student
completes an activity independently.

Using peer assistance when appropriate.

Modifying activities or exercises so assignments can be completed by the student, but providing the
same or similar

academic objectives.

Creating tests that are appropriate for the student with speech impairment (for example,written instead
of oral or vice

versa.)

Providing scribes for test taking if a student needs assistance.

Making sure the student understands test instructions completely and providing

additional assistance if needed.

Educators should create an environment

of acceptance and understanding in the

classroom, and encourage peers to accept the student with speech impairment. Practice and maintain
easy and effective communication skills by modeling good listening skills and by facilitating participation
of all students in classroom discussions and activities. If a student requires a sign language interpreter or
the use of augmentative communication, provide adequate space and time to accommodate these
forms of communication.

Some students with severe communication disorders will have deficits with the analytical skills required

to read and write. Individual instruction

may be necessary to remediate these

deficits, but should be provided discreetly

to avoid embarrassment and possible

resistance. Teachers should constantly

model the correct production of sound.

Maintain eye contact with the student, then tell her to watch the movements of

your mouth when providing direct

instruction.Ask her to copy these

movements when she produces the sounds.

Teaching Strategies for Students with

Communication Disorders