Intellectual Disability: Cognitive Development, Theories, and Support

This report delves into the multifaceted aspects of intellectual disability, focusing on cognitive development and support strategies for both children and adults. It begins with an overview of intellectual disability, defining its characteristics and causes, including biomedical, behavioral, and educational risk factors. The report then explores Down syndrome, a specific genetic disorder, detailing its impact on cognitive abilities, learning patterns, and visual memory skills. It further examines various cognitive theories, such as Piaget's theory of cognitive development, Mayer's cognitive theory, and Skinner's behaviorist operant conditional model, to understand how these theories can aid in improving cognitive skills and adaptive behaviors. The report emphasizes the importance of visual teaching approaches, shorter attention spans, and the use of assistive technology. Finally, it addresses the need for adaptions and support systems in schools and communities to ensure that individuals with intellectual disabilities have access to opportunities and are integrated into society. This report underscores the importance of providing appropriate training, education, and support to enable individuals with intellectual disabilities to lead fulfilling lives and contribute to their communities.

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Table of Contents
Abstract:...........................................................................................................................................2
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
Intellectual disability.......................................................................................................................3
Down Syndrome..........................................................................................................................4
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development....................................................................................4
Mayer’s cognitive theory.............................................................................................................6
Skinner’s behaviorist operant conditional model.........................................................................7
Adaptions to support adults or children with intellectual disability:...............................................7
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................8
References......................................................................................................................................10
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Abstract:
This paper discusses different problems encountered by children and adult with intellectual
disabilities and ways to overcome these problems. It includes Down syndrome in children and its
impact on them and how to improve their cognitive capabilities. It also discusses the theories like
Piaget’s to understand various phases of cognitive development in a child. It also includes
Mayer’s and Skinner’s theory which can assist children with intellectual disability in learning
and living independently. Lastly, the ways by which we can support children or adult with
intellectual disability in the community.
Introduction:
Cognition can be defined as a mental action or a process involved in learning, remembering,
understanding and knowing things. It is a set of mental processes and abilities that are part of
every individual action when they are awake. Cognitive abilities are brain-based abilities or skills
that every one needs to carry out from simple to most complex work. It involves the mechanisms
of how individual remember, learn, solve problems, pay attention, rather than the actual
knowledge (Michelon, 2006).
Cognitive skills are supported by particular neuronal network. These skills tend to decline with
age, especially executive functions and those abilities that are not used on regular basis. But
these can be best by several lifestyle practices and options (Prowse, 2014). Each cognitive skills
and abilities plays significant role in processing new information. If any of these skills is weak
then individual’s way of retaining, grasping or using the information is highly affected. Most
learning disabilities are caused by weak cognitive skills. These skills can be developed in
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children by progressively building learning skills and techniques such as memory, attention and
thinking. These skills help children to develop and process sensory information and finally learn
to analyze, evaluate, make comparisons, remember, understand the cause and effect. These skills
in children develop rapidly in the first few years and increases progressively throughout
elementary school. Several cognitive skill development is due to genetic makeup of children and
some are acquired by learning which means that learning and thinking skills in children can be
improved by appropriate training and practice (Becker, Biedinger, & Klein, 2013).
Intellectual disability
Intellectual disability can be defined as a disability characterized by significant inability in
intellectual functioning and also in adaptive behavior as exhibited in social, conceptual and
practical adaptive skills. It is caused by social, biomedical educational, behavioral risk factor that
is transferred from parent to child or by interaction of risk factors during the life span of
individual. Biomedical risk factors include genetic disorders, lack of nutritious etc. (Wise, 2016).
Behavioral factors include behaviors like maternal substance use and social factors include adult
responsiveness, child stimulation. Educational risk factors include educational supports and
availability of family that helps in mental development and increases adaptive skills (Welsh, Nix,
Blair, & Bierman, 2010). There are several types of intellectual disabilities like Down syndrome,
Fragile X-syndrome, developmental delay etc. involves difficulty in learning, retaining
information and communicating. Fragile X syndrome is one of the most common inherited
intellectual disability in the world. It is a genetic condition that is caused by mutation in the X
chromosome (Alesi, Battaglia, Roccella, & Pepi, 2014).
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Down Syndrome
Down syndrome is a genetic disorder which is caused due to partial or full, extra copy of
chromosome 21 in the DNA. In Australia, about 1 in 1100 children are born with this disorder.
There is some delay in the development in these children. Development are not delayed equally
in every areas but have a particular pattern of learning and cognitive difficulties. Children with
Down syndrome mostly shows characteristics such as: they generally have strong visual memory
skills and visual processing skills. Their reading skills is better than oral language. They face
difficulty with numbers but non-verbal communication and social understanding is their strength.
Motor skills in these children is mostly delayed and may have visual and hearing impairments.
Specific delay auditory processing and auditory short-term memory are their weakness. Children
with Down syndrome mostly has a hallmark appearance. Commonly they have short neck and
small head, upward slanting eyes and a flat face (Typical Learning Profile of a Child with Down
Syndrome, 2016). These children have decreased mental function and low IQ level. These
children may have these issues but their cognitive skills can be improved by interaction with
family and society, proper care, appropriate education. To improve their cognitive abilities, one
must consider following things:
1.Visual teaching approach with practical and concrete materials are more effective and efficient
for them while learning.
2.These children have shorter concentration and attention span, they get easily distracted and
face difficulty in focusing on more than one thin. So, they need regular break and work broken
into small sessions.
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3.Reasoning and thinking skills are important for them to improve their cognitive skills. These
children often understand more words and can produce more words. As many children with this
disorder have hearing impairments, using picture exchange system and sign language is very
effective for them.
4.They also mostly have difficulty in working memory skills but these can be improved by
proper guidance and training.
There are several theories that can help to improve cognitive skills in intellectual disability of
several types:
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
This theory describes the various stages of children mental development and also explains the
ways to construct a mental model of the world. Piaget’s never considered intelligence as a fixed
trait rather he believed cognitive development as a process occurring due to learning
environment and biological maturation (Ribaupierre, 2001).
Piaget was one of the first psychologist who conducted research on cognitive development. His
contribution included stage theory of children cognitive development, observation-based study
on cognition and tests to discover different cognitive abilities. Piaget’s was interested in the idea
or ways by which various fundamental concepts like number, time, justice, causality, quantity
etc. emerged (McLeod, 2015).
Previously, it was believed that children are less competent thinkers than adults. Piaget
demonstrated that children think in quite different ways in comparison to adults. The four stages
identified by Jean Piaget are:
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1. Sensorimotor stage: this is the stage in which children (2 years) learn about the world
through manipulation of objects with their senses.
2. Preoperational stage: in this stage, the memory an imagination of children (2 to 7 years)
develops. They learn about things symbolically and also understand about the past and
future events.
3. Concrete operational stage: this is the stage when children (7 to 11 years) starts to
understand their own feelings and also become aware of external events.
4. Formal Operational stage: By this stage, children (11 years and older) starts to use logic
to solve problems, better understand the world around them and can think future plans.
The main objective of this theory is to explain the stages or mechanism through which an infant
develops into child and child develops into an adult who can think and reason. This theory
mainly focused on development rather than ways of learning specific behavior or information.
Developing the cognitive and learning skills of children and learning skills of children through
games and physical activity
The use of assistive technology which includes computer-based games, tools or software can
help the children with intellectual disability to learn, play, communicate, socialize and become
independent in their lives. This has drawn the attention towards design and development of
applications for individual with intellectual disability.
This has given rise to collaborative complex learning resources which is based on collaborative
learning and live sessions. The use of animated avatars discussing together on a topic and as a
result the learner used to understand the communication in a simple way. According to a
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research, the use of physical activities in classroom have been considered to be effective in
improving children cognitive experience and also enhances their overall performance by 6%.
The various other learning models which allows children to learn through multimedia are listed
below:
Mayer’s cognitive theory
This theory allows the children to learn through audio and visual channels. It basically uses
sensory, working and memory to produce multimedia elements and which converts into logical
mental constructs (Dandashi, Karkar, Saad, & Al-Jaam, 2015). As per this theory, there are three
important phases through which a learner engages in. Firstly, there is selection of audio and
visual information to form a base for learning, secondly, the information is organized to form
coherent mental representation and finally the resulting visual and audio representation re
integrated with one another.
Skinner’s behaviorist operant conditional model
This theory encourages learner behavior by positive or negative reinforcement. These
reinforcements can be of different forms:
Positive reinforcement: Favoring the learner after the completion of target.
Negative reinforcement: Removal of unfavorable outcomes after the completion of target.
Positive punishment: pushing the learner to weaken the negative response.
Negative punishment: removal of favorable event after an undesirable behavior.
As per skinner’s theory, there exists three different responses which can reflect behavior.
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1. Reinforcers: these are the responses which increases the possibility of certain behavior
being repeated. These can be positive or negative.
2. Neutral operants: these are the responses from the surrounding or other factors which
neither increases or decreases the possibility of certain behavior from happening.
3. Punishers: these responses decrease the possibility of certain behavior from being
repeated.
Although this theory promotes both positive and negative reinforcement and punishment it is
appropriate to use only the positive and negative reinforcement as it will promote positive
encouragement.
Adaptions to support adults or children with intellectual disability:
Every individual irrespective of their abilities should be respected and have access to all the
choices or opportunities to participate in all community related activities. these inclusion and
participation of people with disabilities do not happen overnight. It is important to consider, how
to promote and support these people with disabilities and their families in different phases of
their lives such as school life, adult life and aging. Each of these phases provides different
opportunities to support their preferences, involvement and self-esteem and determination
(McConnell & Savage, 2015). Each subsequent phase prepares the individual and his family to
the next level. There should be special education programs for each individual which considers
their strength and support them while learning. The schools play vital role during the transition
phase from child to adulthood. The transition which begins from 16years should include
trainings, assessments that can help student along with their families and staffs which matches
their interest, skills in such a way that they get employment after their graduation (Supports,
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Modifications, and Accommodations for Students, 2017). The ability to earn money to fulfill
one’s need is fundamental to every individual life and is respected in every community.
Employment gives great sense of pride and purpose in every individual life. So, the person with
Down syndrome should have all this rights and opportunities to feel like a normal person there
should be opportunities based on their choices and skills, so that they are also contributing to the
community. The promotion of social capital should be in such a way that every person
understands the benefit of each individual including the person with disabilities and their
contribution to the society (Woodman, Mailick, Anderson, & Esbensen, 2014). For example,
there is an energy company in Spain, Repsol which provides employment to the person with
disabilities at gas stations.
Conclusion:
The people with intellectual disability may be different from any other normal person but can
contribute to the community if provided with proper training as per their choice and skill. There
are several types of intellectual disability like Down syndrome and can be improved by proper
education and training. They should not be left isolated rather every person from community
should support them along with their families so that they can overcome their disabilities. There
should be special educational programs, physical activities which enhances their abilities and
make learning easier for them. The Piaget’s theory explained various stages of development in a
child. While Meyer’s and Skinner’s theories encouraged the children to learn things in a more
easier way.
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References
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Becker, B., Biedinger, N., & Klein, O. (2013). The Development of Cognitive, Language, and Cultural Skills
From Age 3 to 6. American Educational Research Journal, 50(6), 616–649.
Dandashi, A., Karkar, A. G., Saad, S., & Al-Jaam, J. (2015). Enhancing the Cognitive and Learning Skills of
Children with Intellectual Disability through Physical Activity and Edutainment Games.
International Journal of Distributed Sensor Network, 1-11.
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https://aaidd.org/docs/default-source/sis-docs/aaiddfaqonid_template.pdf?sfvrsn=2
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https://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html
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