Abstract:

In recent years, the new European Education Area has encouraged the inclusion of new methodologies, technologies, etc. in educational contexts in general, but with greater impetus in higher education contexts, favouring the incorporation of new skills in university teaching staff curricula (Rodríguez-Izquierdo, R.M., Pérez-Pérez, I., in Díaz Jiménez, R. M., 2019). Although it is true that the inclusion of ICT in the classroom favours (among other things) the inclusion and participation of people with different abilities, these are generally focused on the adaptation of the spaces and training content to people with physical or sensory disabilities (Weedon & Riddell, 2016).

The UN has as an integral strategy to ensure the necessary conditions to achieve the inclusion of disability, constituting the basis for a sustainable and transforming progress (UN, 2019). Despite the increase in the inclusion of persons with disabilities (IDP) in the university environment, the inclusion of persons with IDP is still minimal with respect to persons with different disabilities.

There are many circumstances that hinder the inclusion of persons with intellectual disabilities in higher education, thus disadvantaging the opportunities for IDPs to be trained and to become fully-fledged persons in society and in the workplace. Sometimes this is increased by the type of methodologies that are still being developed in educational system, which is traditional and hinders the inclusion of students (Roig-Vila, 2017 cited by Díaz Jiménez, 2019).

Normally, the training of university teachers is aimed at courses on pedagogical knowledge, leaving psychological learning neglected, the latter being just as important as the former (Hué, 2013). In this sense, and with the aim of improving the quality of training and the inclusion of IDPs in the university environment, this study has sought to shed light on the current knowledge of the competence needs of university teachers, both pedagogical and psychological, in order to promote the inclusion of IDPs in their classrooms. To this end, a systematic review of 152 scientific articles from from March to May 2020 in English and Spanish has been carried out in Europe. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASPe) in Spanish has been used as a tool to compare quality.

The results show how and what means teachers use to acquire ID skills, what they understand by basic or essential training for the inclusion of IDPs and, finally, the future lines of research and programme design needed to provide a real and efficient response to the needs of the entire university community are glimpsed.

Keywords:

Intellectual disability, higher education, teaching skills.