Abstract:

Specific learning disorders (SpLD) are a developmental disorder that begins by early age and involves ongoing problems learning key academic skills, including reading, writing and math. SpLD, if not treated, can potentially cause problems throughout a person’s life, including lower self-esteem, higher psychological distress, lower academic achievement and higher rates of unemployment o ruder-employment. The employment rate of people with basic activity difficulties in the EU-28 in 2011 was 47.3 % (Eurostat), almost 20 percentage points below that of people without such difficulties; this aspect reveals that persons with disabilities in the EU28 are in employment by 42.3% as compared with non-disorders persons who are employed by 64.6%.

Therefore it is critical to meet the needs of people with this kind of disorders in order to improve and maintain the quality of their life. According to the communication from the European Commission “Opening up the education” “new technologies and OER can have an extraordinary effect on improving efficiency, accessibility and equity of education, training, and learning. Learning and teaching can become more focused on the learner supporting the individual learning pathways, enhancing collaboration online and blending formal and informal education”.

The main objective of the five-countries project we would like to present is to increase the ICT and software development skills and competencies of people with Specific Learning Disorders for employment and improving VET trainers' skills. The project outputs are a research background manual for teachers, software, the online platform for VET students and workshops for VET (ICT) teachers.

Keywords:

Specific learning disorders, ICT teaching, vocational education, pedagogical project, innovative pedagogical approach.