Shaping the faces of the prism: Rights, supports, and quality of life for enhancing inclusive education opportunities in students with intellectual disability

Abstract

Although inclusive education has evolved from a general principle to a recognized right, a quality inclusive education is still not a reality for students with intellectual disability. In this article, we discuss three approaches that can bridge the gap between “what is” current education of these students and “what should be”. First, we address the underpinnings of Article 24 of the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities a nd its i mplication for educational systems concerning placement and goals to achieve in these students. Second, we provide a general overview of the supports paradigm and its conceptual and practical implications regarding inclusive education. Third, we present a quality of life model as a value-based and evidence-driven framework to enhance inclusive opportunities in students with intellectual disability and to support decision-making in education from a “whole child approach”. Finally, we provide a comprehensive, systematic framework that brings these three approaches together to improve students’ outcomes linked to the goals of access, participation, learning, and development.

Development and Validation of Standardized Quality of Life Measures for Persons with IDD

“…This model already proposed, four years before the UNCRPD was passed, rights as a key domain in the lives of persons with disabilities [6]. In a recent work by Amor et al [9], the authors of the model highlighted its key conceptual foundations: (a) Respect for the persons and the domains that make up their lives; (b) respect for their rights and self-determination and (c) to seek the satisfaction of their aspirations and needs based in personalized and person-centered approaches in all relevant contexts.…”

“…Beyond the conceptual bases of the model, it is necessary to understand how to articulate the proposal in a systematic framework for action that allows transferring the values shared with the UNCRPD to the measurement and improvement of the QoL and rights of persons with disabilities [9]. Moreover, this is possible because the model stands as a measurement framework and as a change agent, as subsequently described in the next sections.…”

“…In this sense, the quality of life (QoL) model of Schalock and Verdugo [6] is commonly seen as a reference framework for addressing this need, given its conceptual and practical implications. This model is the most accepted QoL model in the disability field [7,8] since it does not only provide a conceptual basis to understand what QoL is, but it also offers a framework for action that allows the materialization of the rights of persons with disabilities through the multidimensional assessment of said persons using QoL indicators, and the development of actions guided by these values and supported by evidence gathered from assessment [9]. The purpose of this work is twofold: (a) Explaining the conceptual and applied underpinnings of the QoL model and (b) offering a step-by-step guide to developing standardized QoL assessment instruments and providing evidence that supports their use to implement the model in practice.…”

Examining the Suitability of the List of Indicators Describing Age-Related Typical Support Needs

“…To reverse this trend and support their inclusion, several scholars (e.g., [3,6,7]) have proposed the adoption of the supports paradigm within general education contexts, an approach developed over decades of research and practice in the field of IDD [8,9]. The supports paradigm to support the inclusion of these students is important because it provides a renewed view of IDD and of the students who have the condition [2,10], a work methodology that focuses on understanding the globality of these students and their holistic support needs in education contexts and activities [5,6,11] and tools that facilitate the implementation of this conceptual and applied framework [12].…”

“…Applying this paradigm to education means understanding students with IDD as learners who experience mismatches between their personal competencies and the environmental demands posed by education contexts and activities [3,6,10,11]. These demands are defined by what is expected from students with IDD in the classroom (i.e., in relation to access to and learning from the general education curriculum), at school (e.g., social activities or self-determination), and in the community (e.g., school trips).…”