Online education of students with mild intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic in the opinion of teacher

Abstract

Online education, introduced obligatorily during the COVID-19 pandemic, poses a great challenge for teachers, students and their parents. Children and adolescents with mild intellectual disability or with ASD, that due to their cognitive deficits need appropriate support, are in a particular difficult situation. The aim of the conducted research was to specify the possible problems of online education of students with mild intellectual disability and ASD in their teachers' opinion. The research consisted in answering the questions from an online questionnaire. 114 teachers teaching children and adolescents with mild intellectual disability and 114 teachers teaching children and adolescents with ASD participated in the research. The results show that according to the teachers the biggest problems of students with mild intellectual disability and ASD are: understanding and remembering new material, lack of contact with their peers. Students with ASD are characterized by significantly greater intensity of the occurrence of difficulties in the area of education than people with mild intellectual disability. Difficulties in both groups of examined children and adolescents oblige to appropriately support them in online education and cooperation with their parents.