Enhancing Peer Interaction Among Children with Intellectual Disability

Children are most beautiful and unique creation of God endowed with the numerous

abilities and enormous potential. During the course of development, the physical, cognitive,

language and psycho-social capacities of children unfolds and extends the new frontiers of

knowledge, opportunities and possibility. The innate factors and the societal influences help

children to achieve maximum development of their potential in different arenas of life and with

the passage of time they become the fully functioning adults equipped with essential skills and

abilities required for a successful life. But the journey of children who are deficient in some of

the abilities is not same as the typically developing children as their deficiencies or limitation

interferes with their pace of development and they could not meet the expectations of society.

Fundamentally, the children with deficiencies are visibly and functionally different from

the typical children, their developmental milestones are delayed and even restricted in some

cases, different pace of learning, poor adaptive skills, poor social skills, complete or partial

dependence on others, poor socialization and poor self-concept affect their quality of life to a

great extent. To achieve their full potential based on their residual abilities, they need different

approaches and strategies of teaching at home and school along with some assistive

technologies. Similarly, in the social front, they need special attention and assistance of parents,

siblings, teachers, peers and other members of society. These children are identified with

different names like 'children with disability', 'exceptional children', 'children with special

needs' 'children with different abilities', 'children with significant disability', 'children with

diverse abilities.

Disability is one of the most misunderstood terms and in lay vernacular it is often

interchangeably used for 'impairment' or 'handicapped'. According to WHO & World Bank

(2011), defining disability is a very complicated task as it is very "complex, multidimensional, contested and dynamic". In its initial attempt to define disability, WHO proposed a three-fold definition of impairment, disability, and handicap stating that "an impairment is any loss or abnormality of a psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function; a disability is any restriction or lack (resulting from an impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being; a handicap is a disadvantage

for a given individual, resulting from an impairment or a disability, that prevents the fulfilment

of a role that is considered normal (depending on age, sex, social and cultural factors) for that

individual" WHO (1976).