Abstract:

Creation of equal conditions and opportunities for participation in the life of society for all its members is one of the priority tasks that any democratic state should solve. At the same time, obtaining higher education, high-quality professional skills and abilities by people with disabilities is of particular importance.
This paper is dedicated to exploring the progress of results of ongoing DECIDE Erasmus project implementation experiences in Saken Seifullin Kazakh Agrotechnical University (hereinafter KATU) which aimed at developing services for individuals with disabilities and stated as one of the objectives of the project, the implementation of a comprehensive sustainable curriculum for teacher trainer educators and lecturers.
The present study focuses on one of the eight DECIDE curriculum modules - module 5 “Meeting Needs - Cognition and Learning (including moderate to severe learning disabilities and dyslexia). The module guides lecturers in the development of curricula for students with cognition and learning needs, by equipping them with essential practices and methods using in teaching students with such kinds of disabilities in the learning process. Piloting of the 25-hour module involved 18 lecturers of the university. This paper aims to examine the effectiveness of the training and recommendations for further its implementation in other higher education institutions.
The study is grounded in qualitative design with an instrumental case study method. 9 lecturers, who had 25 hour-long module training were invited to participate in the study. Since the selected research design, the case study, “tends to use certain data collection tools in interpretative paradigm” (Cohen et al., 2013, p.262), the semi-structured open-ended interviews, with about 10-12 questions were conducted.
The study results showed that the module effectively introduced lecturers with basic concepts of cognitive impairment ability and in learning, their types, including dyslexia and practices applications of inclusive education in Kazakhstan, their difference from each other. The essence of the various practices and methods used in teaching students with similar learning disabilities were also discussed, however, the study results revealed that there is a lack of practical part on how to work with disabled students and potential difficulties during the lesson, and how to overcome them.
The study suggests to include in the training the invitation of experts (tutors) who have experience of working with students with special needs. Other recommendations derived from the interviews analysis and literature review are also outlined in the paper.

Keywords:

Inclusion, technology, Erasmus+ project, communication skills, academic interaction.