Education for Individuals with Down Syndrome

Education for Individuals with Down Syndrome

Learning occurs automatically in typically developing individuals as they interact with their environment. Information reaches the brain through sensory inputs: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. The learner perceives the meaning of these inputs and processes them by interpreting, organising, and transferring them into short-term working memory. When information is used and practised frequently, it moves into long-term memory where it is stored for rapid retrieval and use when needed, becoming a permanent part of the learner's memory.

The learning process for individuals with Down syndrome is different; they are generally unable to navigate this process automatically. This means we need to adapt our teaching methods to ensure our students become successful learners.

The Six Key Elements of the Learning Process

1. Environmental exposure
2. Sensory input
3. Perception
4. Processing
5. Output
6. Feedback

Environmental Exposure

Infants and young children find everything in their world new; they see, hear, taste, touch, and feel for the first time, but are unable to make sense of this world on their own. Parents help children interact with the environment by introducing the names of things and how they work, cause-and-effect relationships, sequencing of events, categories, and strategies for organising information, as well as labels for what they see, hear, taste, touch, and feel. Children also need stimulation and interaction with the environment to learn language and how to use it to communicate.

Children with Down syndrome may find it difficult to communicate with their parents. Certain types of interaction — gestures, hand signs paired with words, turn-taking, play, singing, talking, and reading — contribute to preparing them for the learning process.

Sensory Input

The ability of a learner with Down syndrome to receive sensory input is often unclear, for several reasons:

• Sensory inputs may not be sharp due to visual and/or hearing impairments, or due to reduced sense of taste and smell caused by frequent colds. These problems need to be addressed firmly.
• Auditory short-term memory is weak, while visual short-term memory is relatively good. Therefore, visual inputs must be paired with auditory inputs.
• They may filter out much of the sensory input during instruction because it is too much, too fast, and/or too confusing. The quantity and rate of sensory input needs to be regulated to match the student's capacity for reception, perception, and processing.
• Some children may fail to filter out sensory inputs that are not relevant to the learning activity. Therefore, the learning environment must be free from sensory distractions.

Perception

Perception is the learner's understanding of information, and it must be accurate and clear. An illustrative example: a teacher used orange cardboard squares to teach the colour "orange." Shortly after the lesson, the teacher pointed to a wooden square and asked: "What is this?" The student answered: "Orange." However, the student's perception was that "orange" was the name of the shape, not the colour. This example highlights the critical importance of ensuring accurate perception and avoiding conceptual confusion.

Processing

Typical learners have a "storage system" that allows them to store information for easy retrieval later. Learners with Down syndrome may lack this system; instead, information flows and becomes jumbled in a random way, making it very difficult to retrieve. Therefore, the way information is presented and used must be organised so that it can be stored and easily retrieved when needed.

The goals of the student's Individual Education Plan (IEP) contribute to organising information, which is then presented through the four stages of learning: acquisition, practice, transfer, and generalisation.

Output

After information has been stored, the student needs an effective means to demonstrate that they have understood it. The means of demonstration depends on the student's abilities and skills. Output is a vital part of the learning process, as it allows us to determine the extent to which the student has understood the information.

The ideal model of output is verbal or through sign language; students say or sign what they have learned and answer questions. Visual learners are often unable to use verbal language to confirm what they have learned. They need repetition and sufficient time to practise skills through matching first, then selection, before being asked to provide the answer verbally or through sign language.

Feedback

Students must know whether their answers are correct. Without accurate feedback, the learning process is incomplete. For visual learners, feedback is most effective when words are paired with concrete, visible objects. Providing students with tokens or stickers they can use to collect their own data, measure their progress, and set their own goals allows them to participate fully in the learning process and evaluate their own performance.

Student Regression

If data collection shows that a student "knows" something on one day but "does not know" it the next day, week, or month, or after the summer holiday, this does not necessarily mean they have regressed or lost their memory. It generally means that the information was stored in short-term memory but was not used and practised enough to be transferred to long-term memory.

In this case, previously taught information should be reviewed, and if the review fails to retrieve it, it should be re-taught. Re-teaching previously learned material is faster than teaching new material. Remember that the learning process is not complete until all four stages have been completed: acquisition, practice, transfer, and generalisation. Meaningful, functional information is retained in long-term memory through continued use in the natural environment.