Documenting pedagogical support measures in Finnish IEPs for students with intellectual disability

Abstract

The individual education plan (IEP) is an essential part of special education and is used widely in Western countries for documenting both the learning goals and support measures for children with special needs. This study focused on the documentation of support measures in the IEPs of Finnish students with intellectual disability (ID) (N = 21). The documents contained 195 expressions of support measures analysed by content analysis. The results showed that most support measures in the IEPs were general pedagogical principles from the research literature. In general, the expressions were not described thoroughly, although there were some specific expressions of support measures amplified by descriptions of the activity, person in charge or context. Further research is needed on how to best support teachers in documenting IEPs.