Psychopedagogist Dahiana Barzola Chavez discusses in this post how inclusive education is implemented and how NeuronUP is used at the EDUCA Basic Education School in Salinas, Ecuador.

The school has developed a flexible, open, and inclusive program that incorporates Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in its educational processes. This program aims to promote inclusive education and address the diversity of its students, including 24% who are neurodivergent.

We have integrated NeuronUP into our personalized neurorehabilitation processes, and we will now share our positive experience.

NeuronUP for inclusive education

Since the beginning of the academic year in the coastal region of Ecuador, we have incorporated NeuronUP’s cognitive stimulation exercises into our neurorehabilitation planning to foster inclusive education. These exercises are categorized by intervention areas and enable us to measure individualized progress automatically and easily.

Using metrics, we can track the development of basic learning skills and share the NeuronUP scores, accompanied by captured images, with the involved educational community. We share this information via email or the institutional platform with parents, teachers, and external therapists.

All these processes aim to recommend, provide feedback, stimulate, and enhance mental functions through strategies for home and classroom environments. We strive to create efficient and motivating processes using traditional teaching resources, including musical and voice neurostimulation.

Guidelines to implement inclusive education

Key elements of our inclusive approach in personalized processes

1. Reviewing the psycho-pedagogical and neuropsychological evaluations conducted by parents and provided to the school.

2. Designing curriculum adaptations if necessary for students with special educational needs (SEN).

3. Working within the social context of the classroom to promote understanding and leveraging of individual differences.

4. Providing training to ensure teacher commitment and promotion of inclusive education.

5. Sharing information about SEN through platforms, social media, in-person talks, or via Zoom to foster acceptance within the educational community.

6. Offering therapeutic interventions during school hours, with established schedules, for children with diagnoses. These interventions are coordinated and involve all relevant parties.

Ordinary measures

Ordinary measures refer to teaching, learning, and evaluation methods that address diversity and support inclusive education without modifying curriculum requirements. Within our educational space, ordinary measures include:

• Flexibility in the school schedule and virtual spaces to accommodate different student groups.
• Organizational and methodological measures to adapt to diverse rhythms, motivations, and interests. These measures include inquiry-based work strategies, cooperative learning, peer tutoring, graded activities, and a variety of materials and resources. Students are arranged in different groups: individual, small, or large.
• Recovery activities to support students in mastering areas they haven’t passed during in-person classes.
• Support actions for students with different learning paces.
• Reinforcement activities intended for students who can follow the regular curriculum but require individualized attention in curricular aspects, learning strategies, and virtual work guidelines.
• Collaboration between the school and families during scheduled therapy hours.

Extraordinary measures

Extraordinary measures are implemented for a few students who require specific personal and material resources. These measures are adopted when ordinary measures have been exhausted to achieve inclusive education.

We believe that telerehabilitation and NeuronUP provide accessibility advantages for:

• Children and families residing in remote communities, far from the educational institution.
• Children who cannot leave their homes due to illness.
• Monitoring progress through NeuronUP Score.

Evaluation of therapeutic intervention results

Every four months, we provide progress reports that include captured images of the advancements recorded by NeuronUP Score. These reports also feature a neurodevelopment assessment using formal tests and include specific recommendations to achieve significant individual progress.

We share these reports with parents, teachers, and other therapists involved in the individualized intervention process, fostering a collaborative approach tailored to individual needs and committing decisively to inclusive education.

If you liked this post on the guidelines to implement inclusive education, you may be interested in these NeuronUP posts:

Cognitive intervention in people with Down syndrome

Online neuropsychological intervention in a case with developmental delay

How to work on cognitive stimulation in children with autism spectrum disorder