A pedagogical look at individualized educational planning for students with intellectual disabilities

Abstract

Pedagogical work from the perspective of inclusive education currently demands from teacher’s adherence to new curricular strategies and proposals that are capable of guaranteeing a teaching-learning process that does not exclude and segregate, but rather that includes and encourages participation and engagement of students with special needs. For this, the focus of teaching should not be on the disease and difference, that is, on the restrictions and limitations of this student, but on their potential, which are multiple and powerful. Given this scenario, the general objective of the research is to carry out a survey in the literature about the most important aspects that must be taken into account in the elaboration of the Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) for the promotion of inclusive education. The delimited research problem is the following: how can the Individualized Educational Plan (PEI) be a viable strategy for a pedagogical work that encourages students' autonomy and independence by focusing on their potential and not on their disability? The proposed methodology is a literature review, with a qualitative approach and a descriptive-exploratory nature. The results indicate that the process of school inclusion in common classrooms still faces challenges, since, in several cases, teachers do not know how to promote this inclusion and, therefore, continue to perpetuate traditional practices that corroborate with the maintenance of a segregated culture that does not encourage the participation of students with intellectual disabilities.