Abstract:

The reading process, as the ability and dexterity to read properly, represents is a challenge for some children and adolescents who have difficulty with it. Said difficulty is evidenced in school ages at the time of learning the letters, and form syllables, among others. Some authors claim that such difficulty originates from the methodology of the teacher; others in turn state that it is normal of intellectual disability. The stages of the development of the reading proposed by Frith (1984, 1985, and 1989) maintain that, to become nifty readers, children pass through three stages: logographic, alphabetic, and orthographic. However, from a practical perspective, it can be considered that there is no effective method to teach reading and writing to all children with intellectual disabilities because they are not a homogeneous population; therefore, each of the potentialities were taken into account and from there methodological alternatives are generated. During the development of this work, cognitive abilities affected by intellectual disability are presented, and from there strategies aimed at the success of the child's inter-learning were provided.

A universe population of 1253 children and adolescents was taken to the Unit of Psycho-pedagogical Diagnosis Research and Inclusion Support (UDIPSAI for its acronym in Spanish) due to learning disabilities. Out of these, a sample of 730 belong to educational inclusion were selected for presenting borderline or lower extreme intellectual capacity, an ex post facto design was used, with two non-equivalent groups, using as a control group subjects with learning disabilities without borderline or lower extreme intellectual capacity. The inclusion criterion was the IQ; the independent variable was the limit or inferior extreme intellectual functioning in the Wechsler scale scores, and as the dependent variable the academic performance and the results in the academic tasks raised were used. The influence of age, perinatal factors and etiology were statistically controlled. For the statistical analysis, latest version of the statistical package SPSS was used. Both groups were contrasted with central tendency statistics using the relevant controls for the breach of parametric assumptions, using nonparametric tests when necessary. Direct observation was the technique used and the instruments used were: an observation sheet, psychometric assessments of intelligence and cognitive processes using the Wechsler scales based on age, self-developed academic tasks obtained from the official curriculum for each educational stage evaluated up to the seventh year of elementary general education. Obtaining the data entailed the use of a written commitment, informed consent and guarantee of anonymity and confidentiality.

The results characterize the learning disabilities of the students with borderline or lower extreme intellectual functioning, determining the cognitive abilities affected in the learning of the reading and writing and mathematical calculation. This allowed to establish the cognitive pattern that underlies them and from that propose methodological strategies with a neuro-psycho-pedagogical approach to respond to the educational needs of the researched population.

These results may be applicable in institutions of elementary and baccalaureate education as a reference for the intervention of students who have learning disabilities due to their limit or inferior extreme intellectual functioning

Keywords:

Reading, Learning disabilities, Intellectual disability, Borderline, Development.