EU project to develop adapted learning materials for people with Down Syndrome
Posted on: 06 February 2019
A three year EU funded programme which aims to address the lack of specific learning material for people with learning disabilities is being implemented by Trinity’s School of Engineering with five other European partners.
Commenting on the SUSKIDS project, Associate Professor Sara Pavia, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering and Principal Investigator said: “Our objective is to develop adapted learning and teaching materials on environmental sustainability and construction with recycled materials. Ultimately, we would like to contribute to the education, employability and social inclusion of people with Down Syndrome through education on these subjects”.
“Mainstream students have a choice of textbooks and other learning resources in any discipline. However this is not the case for students with intellectual disabilities. For these students, contents need to be adapted, and adapting learning material is usually dependant on the work by teachers, special needs assistants and parents”.
The €447,000 project is producing courses compliant with the European Framework of Qualifications (EFQ) which will include their own evaluation in addition to producing teaching-learning resources and electronic tools for learning. These will be made available to educational institutions, teachers, professional and civil associations involved with learning disabilities.
The project partners are Universidad de Burgos, Spain, the Irish National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), ASDB (Associacion Sindrome de Down Burgos), UC Leuven-Limburg in Belgium and sofware and I+D companies BJÄLAND and Kveloce.
