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  Intellectual Disability

Core Information

Activities:

Activity 1

Ask all participants to recall any experiences they have had of intellectually disabled people, and to write down three things from those experiences that have made the greatest impression on them.

Lead the discussion with a view to teasing out the implications for daily living which arise from the participants' experiences and impressions. Ask the participants as a collective to formulate a group definition of intellectual disability.

Discuss the differences between an intellectual disability and a psychiatric disability/mental illness.

For example: intellectual disability - Down syndrome, autism. Psychiatric disability - schizophrenia, anorexia, bipolar disorders. 

Activity 2

Aim:

The aim of this activity is to illustrate the frustrations faced by people with an intellectual disability who cannot verbally communicate their needs. 

Core information:

People with an intellectual disability often have difficulty in communicating and may have limited receptive and expressive language. It is often difficult to interpret or understand what they are trying to communicate. 

You need: 

White board and markers, or pen, pencil and paper.

What to do:

Write a simple sentence on a piece of paper, for example, "The cat sat on a hot tin roof."  Show one of the participants the sentence and ask them to relay the sentence to the rest of the group without writing / speaking or using any letters of the alphabet. 

Discuss:

Was it difficult to communicate using this method? 

Activity 3

Aim:

The aim of this activity is to illustrate the difficulties faced by a person with an intellectual disability when assuming that they can read. 

Core information: 

The written word forms a major part of our communication system that we tend to take for granted. A person with an intellectual disability will often have difficulty in reading, or will take longer than would normally be expected to read written forms of communication. 

You need:

White board & markers, or pen, pencil and paper.

What to do:

Write a number of different sentences backwards on a piece of paper, asking different members of the group to decipher.

Example: 

"ehT kcalb tac tas no eht toh nit foor"
"The black cat sat on the hot tin roof."

Discuss:

What were the difficulties faced in deciphering the sentence? 

Activity 4

Aim:

The aim of this activity is to demonstrate receptive language difficulties that can be experienced by people with intellectual disabilities. 

Core information:

Receptive language is identified as a major area of difficulty encountered by people with an intellectual disability. The ability to learn and retain this knowledge can be experienced in varying degrees.

You need:

Pens, pencils paper and chairs.

What to do:

Get the participants to sit back to back. One of the participants will be given a piece of paper with an abstract shape on it. The first participant should try to explain this shape to the second participant who will attempt to accurately reproduce the shape. 

Discuss:

Open discussion (communication difficulties). 

Activity 5

Aim:

The aim of this activity is to demonstrate the difficulties associated with group participation which are often encountered by individuals with an intellectual disability. People with an intellectual disability can often display inappropriate behaviour when interacting with other members of the community, such as invading others personal space.

Core information:

People with an intellectual disability will often have difficulties in participating in group activities, or acting in a manner that is generally considered to be socially acceptable. 

You need: 

Four participants.

What to do:

Asking the participants to form a standing square by placing their arms around the person to their left and right, to then navigate around the outside of the room.

Discuss:

What were the difficulties encountered by this exercise? Did the participants feel uncomfortable by the invasion of their personal space? How would the group cope if one of the members deliberately worked against the rest of the group?