The purpose of the study is to contribute with knowledge of how five elementary school teachers in practice implement policy regarding individually integrated elementary special school students in their teaching. The questions are: How do the five teachers reason about the teacher’s role in working with individually integrated students? How do the teachers reason about adapting the teaching for individually integrated students?  To find teaching strategies that are seen as beneficial for learning and to identify challenges in the context the research review focused on the topic of inclusion and integration for students with intellectual disabilities. The study has a qualitative approach and the method consists of semi-structured interviews with five primary school teachers who have or have had individually integrated classes. The result is analysed based on Dillon’s teaching theory model, whose seven elements together make up the overall teaching context. The result is sorted under the respective elements which meant that several themes are illustrated. The result shows that the teachers initially felt lonely and stressed about teaching integrated classes. What the teachers want is for there to be more adults in the classroom at the same time and enough time for collaboration and planning regarding adaptations. The teachers experience a certain amount of stress regarding the collaboration an integrated class requires, but despite this, this collaboration is seen as supportive and necessary in several ways. The teachers are also positive about having individually integrated elementary special school students because they contribute positively to the class in various ways and develop them as teachers.

Denna studies syfte är att bidra med kunskap om några pedagogers erfarenheter av att stötta kommunikativ utveckling hos elever som läser ämnesområden inom grundsärskolan. De frågeställningar som legat till grund för studien är: Vad betraktar pedagogerna som möjligheter respektive hinder för elevernas kommunikationsutveckling? Hur beskrivs elevernas roll i processen med kommunikationsutveckling? Hur kan pedagogers erfarenheter förstås utifrån specialpedagogiska perspektiv? Digitala semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes med åtta pedagoger verksamma i grundsärskolan. Materialet transkriberades och tematisk innehållsanalys genomfördes samt analys utifrån följande specialpedagogiska perspektiv: ett relationellt perspektiv, ett kategoriskt perspektiv, ett kritiskt perspektiv och ett dilemmaperspektiv. Vårt resultat visar att pedagoger betraktar AKK-verktyg som den främsta möjligheten för elevers kommunikationsutveckling. Pedagogerna beskriver att de har erfarenheter av att använda bland annat bildstöd i form av till exempel pekkartor, scheman och digitala kommunikationsverktyg samt tecken som stöd i undervisningen. Det framkommer även att det är viktigt att ha en fungerande samverkan med vårdnadshavare och andra insatser kring eleven för att kunna skapa de bästa kommunikativa miljöerna för eleverna. Av resultatet framgår också vikten av utbildning och kompetens hos pedagoger inom kommunikation vilket återspeglar mycket av tidigare forskning. Brist på utbildning och kompetens leder till hinder för pedagoger att anpassa undervisningen utifrån elevers kommunikativa behov. I resultatet framkommer att elevernas roll i processen med kommunikationsutveckling främst beskrivs som behövande och att pedagogerna ser det som sin uppgift att kompensera för elevernas kommunikativa svårigheter med olika stödinsatser där AKK är den främsta insatsen. I vår analys ser vi att ett relationellt perspektiv är det mest framträdande perspektivet bland annat genom att relationen mellan pedagog och elev lyfts fram av pedagogerna som avgörande för elevernas kommunikationsutveckling. / The purpose of this study is to contribute knowledge about some pedagogues experiences of supporting communicative development in students with moderate or severe intellectual disability. The questions that formed the basis of the study are: What do pedagogues consider opportunities and obstacles for students' communication development? How is the students' role described in the process of communication development? How can pedagogues experiences be understood from a special education perspective?Digital semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight pedagogues active in the elementary special school. The material was transcribed, and thematic content analysis was carried out, as well as analysis from the following special education perspective: a relationship-based perspective, a categorical perspective, a critical perspective as well as a dilemma perspective. Our results show that pedagogues regard augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) tools as the main opportunity for students' communication development. The pedagogues describe that they have experience of using, among other things, visual support in the form of, for example, point maps, schedules and digital communication tools as well as sign language as support in teaching. It also appears that it is important to have a functioning collaboration with guardians and other efforts around the student in order to create the best communicative environments for the students. The results also show the importance of education and competence of pedagogues in communication, which reflects much of previous research. Lack of education and competence leads to obstacles for pedagogues to adapt teaching based on students' communicative needs.The results show that the students' role in the process of communication development is mainly described as needy and that the pedagogues see it as their task to compensate for the students' communicative difficulties with various support efforts, where AAC is the main effort. In our analysis, we see that a relationship-based perspective is the most prominent perspective in that the relationship between pedagogues and student plays a large role in students' communication development.

Intellektuellt funktionsnedsatta personers rättigheter och levnadsomständigheter har avsevärt förbättrats de senaste decennierna vilket även lett till att de i allt större utsträckning väljer att skaffa barn. Då den intellektuella funktionsnedsättningens begränsningar kan vara en försvårande omständighet för föräldraskapet kan dessa familjer behöva samhällets stöd. Syftet med studien har varit att undersöka tankar och erfarenheter kring de utmaningar professionella upplever i sitt arbete med att stödja dessa familjer. Studien har genomförts med en kvalitativ ansats i form av semistrukturerade intervjuer med professionella som arbetar med målgruppen. Empirin har analyserats utifrån Michael Lipskys teori om gräsrotsbyråkrater vilken belyser de professionellas upplevda utmaningar i arbetet i relation till den byråkratisering och organisationsstruktur som präglar offentliga förvaltningar och leder till oönskade konsekvenser för såväl professionella som för klienter. Resultatet ger en djupare förståelse för hur organisatoriska förutsättningar kan ligga till grund för de olika utmaningar professionella upplever i sitt arbete med familjer där föräldrar har en intellektuell funktionsnedsättning. / The rights and living conditions of intellectually disabled people have significantly improved in recent decades, which has also led to them increasingly choosing to have children. Since the limitations of intellectual disability can be an aggravating circumstance for parenthood, these families may need the support of society. The purpose of the study has been to investigate thoughts and experiences about the challenges professionals experience in their work to support these families. The study has been conducted with a qualitative approach in the form of semi-structured interviews with professionals working with the target group. The empiricism has been analyzed based on Michael Lipsky's theory of street-level bureaucrats, which highlights the professionals' perceived challenges in the work in relation to the bureaucratization and organizational structure that characterizes public administrations and leads to undesirable consequences for both professionals and clients. The result provides a deeper understanding of how organizational conditions can form the basis for the various challenges professionals experience in their work with families where parents have an intellectual disability.

Recent research show that young people with mild intellectual disabilities are raising complaints against the society´s demand for categorization in order to provide the right amount of support (Ineland, Molin & Sauer 2013, Tideman 2012). This study’s purpose is to find out how students attending a senior high school for people with intellectual disability, are affected by their school attendance in their identity making. With focus on finding out:1.What situations within the school prove specific importance in relation to students’ identity making?2.How are the students identity making limited or enabled by their attendance at the school for students with intellectual disabilities? 3.How are the students identity making affected by being included or excluded?The theoretical framework is inspired by theories based on social constructionism. The author has chosen to adopt an intersectional analysis that claims that different power relations in society affects and reinforce each other. Another important theory is social identity theory and representations theory. These theories explain how social identity is created in the relation between the individual and the social world that she exists in. The empirical material was collected through interviews with six students currently attending a senior high school for people with intellectual disability, “gymnasiesärskola” in Swedish. The results show that the specific situations that proved importance for the student’s identity making were: When they were not being able to make choices. How other people, especially teachers, were relating to them combined with the social climate in groups they belonged to. And the overall sense of not being “normal” and having a diagnosis. Results that appeared to be new compared to other studies were that the students interpreted their diagnosis as a school issue and not something that was connected to their own person.

Tidigare forskning visar på att ungdomar med intellektuell funktionsnedsättning (IF) inte deltar i lagidrott i samma mån som andra ungdomar. Forskningen pekar på anpassningar som krävs för att möjliggöra deltagandet i en lagidrott, så som anpassningar på träningar, kompetenta tränare, anpassad kommunikation baserad på individens förmåga och stöd från familj eller anhöriga. Denna studies syfte är att, utifrån tränares perspektiv, undersöka behovet av paraidrottsföreningar och paraidrottslag för ungdomar med IF och hur de arbetar för att möjliggöra social delaktighet för ungdomar med IF. Studien utgår från en kvalitativ ansats där insamlingen av data skedde genom sju semistrukturerade intervjuer via Zoom, Teams, Face-Time och via telefonsamtal. Det insamlade empiriska materialet från intervjuerna, analyserades med en tematisk analysmetod. Resultatet i denna studie visar att informanterna upplevde att det fanns ett behov av lag eller föreningar som riktade sig till denna målgrupp, det fanns en efterfrågan från ungdomarna själva, då vissa ungdomar med IF inte känt att de haft ett lag där de passat in eller hängt med i instruktioner eller fysiskt med sina lagkamrater när de tidigare deltagit i lag med ungdomar som inte hade IF. Informanterna menade även att denna målgrupp behövde bli mer fysiskt aktiva för deras hälsa, såväl fysiskt som psykiskt. Ett sätt att vara mer fysiskt aktiv och främja den sociala delaktigheten är att delta i en lagidrott. Men för att kunna delta i en lagidrott krävs en del anpassningar så som bildstöd eller stöttning i den sociala interaktionen med andra spelare. Att delta i en lagidrott ger många fördelar, så som bättre fysik, en ökad möjlighet för att knyta sociala band och ökad självkänsla och tilltro till sig själv.

Digital games are being increasingly implemented in the educational sector to improvevarious skills. Among these the effectiveness of digital game-based learning (DGBL) on the socio-emotional ability of individuals have been investigated with overall positive results. However, a limited number of studies have investigated the effectiveness of DGBL on this ability in children with intellectual disability and no studies have researched whether DGBL could be effective on the socio-emotional skills of children with this form of disability. Thus, the current study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of DGBL on the specific socio-emotional skill of emotion recognition in children with intellectual disability in the educational sector. The following research question was formulated: Does DGBL increase the socio-emotional skill of emotion recognition in children with intellectual disability. To answer this question a quasiexperimental one-group pretest-posttest design was adopted where participants engaged in a DGBL-intervention where they played a game aimed at improving their emotion recognition ability. Participants were selected via purposive sampling and the final sample consisted of N=7. The sample consisted of children with intellectual disability between the age span of six and nine of both male and female gender. The experiment consisted of three parts: a pretest where data in terms of the socio-emotional skill of emotion recognition was collected, the actual intervention where the participants engaged inplaying a digital game, and lastly, a posttest where the skill of emotion recognition was measured again. The data was subsequently analyzed via a paired sample t-test. The results of the study showed that DGBL did not significantly increase the socio-emotional skill of emotion recognition in children with intellectual disability. This result in part contradicts earlier research on DGBL and intellectual disability as well as DGBL andsocio-emotional skill where significant effects have been identified. However, since no previous research has investigated whether DGBL could be effective in increasing the socio-emotional skill of children with intellectual disability, future research is needed to confirm or reject the present results. In summary, the current research has extended on current knowledge and provided important implications for the field of special education.

Sammanfattning Att alla elever har rätt till undervisning där de utvecklas efter sina förutsättningar, styrks i styrdokumenten. Särskolan är framvuxen ur olika traditioner som genom åren haft skiftande syn på individer som kan tas för avvikande eller annorlunda. Begreppet delaktighet används inte explicit i skollagen men styrdokumenten understryker vikten av att alla elever ska kunna vara en del i undervisningen oavsett individuella förutsättningar. En central utgångspunkt i den här studien är att delaktighet är en förutsättning för lärande. I skolan är det genom undervisningen som elevens lärande förväntas ske. Det är således i undervisningen som eleven behöver vara delaktig. Därmed är det av intresse att utforska vad speciallärare lägger för innebörd i ”delaktighet” just avseende ”undervisning”. Vilken innebörd ger de ” delaktighet” och vilken innebörd ger de ”undervisning”? I vilken relation tycks de här ”innebörderna” stå till varandra? Studien preciserar problemområdet till lärare som undervisar elever med autism i kombination med intellektuell funktionsnedsättning – ett arbete som innebär specifika utmaningar. Studiens syfte är att utforska vilken innebörd lärare i särskolan lägger i elevens ”delaktighet i undervisning” avseende elever med autism i kombination intellektuell funktionsnedsättning. Nio speciallärare har intervjuats. Föreliggande studie avser att fylla en liten del av den kunskapslucka som vi identifierat genom granskning av tidigare forskning. Utifrån ett hermeneutiskt perspektiv undersöks vilken innebörd som lärarna ger elevens ”delaktighet i undervisning”. Resultatet sätter ljuset på att delaktighet i undervisning är ett komplext, dynamiskt fenomen och bör ses, precis som Szönyi och Söderqvist Dunkers (2015a) lyfter, i den kontext den undersöks. Resultatet indikerar att vad läraren lägger för innebörd i elevens ”delaktighet i undervisning” styr lärarens val av aktiviteters/uppgifters karaktär i undervisningen. Resultaten visar att för var och en av informanterna framträder en individspecifik ”relation” mellan den innebörd som informanten ger ”delaktighet” och den innebörd informanten ger ”undervisning”. / All students have the right to an education where they develop according to their own abilities, which is clearly stated in school’s governing documents. The special-needs school has developed from distinct perspectives and traditions, that over the years have had shifting ideas about individuals who are considered deviant or different. The concept of participation is not explicitly stated in the Education Act, but the governing documents emphasize the importance of students participating in the teaching, regardless of individual abilities. The school classroom is an arena where the students are expected to learn. That is why it is of paramount importance that they are given the opportunity to be active participants during teaching. The purpose of this study is to explore the interpretation that special-needs teachers have of the concept “student's participation in teaching” concerning students with autism in combination with intellectual disability. As participation is a prerequisite for learning, it is of great interest to explore whether there is any relationship between the interpretations of students’ “participation” and “teaching”, based on the special-needs teachers' experiences. The present study specifies the problem area for special-needs teachers who work with students with autism in combination with intellectual disability, as that work is exceedingly complex and has very specific challenges associated. Nine special-needs teachers have been interviewed for this study which aims to fill a gap identified in the educational field for students with special needs. More specifically, the study explores the relationship between the meaning of “participation” and the meaning of “teaching”. Teachers’ interpretation of the term “student's participation in teaching” is examined through a hermeneutical lens. The result hopes to shed light on the fact that participation in teaching is a complex, dynamic phenomenon that should be seen, as Szönyi & Söderqvist Dunkers (2015a) highlight, in the context in which it is examined. The results of the study indicate that the teachers’ previous experiences impact, to an extent, their choice of activities and tasks in teaching. All nine teachers identify and relay their individual, and very different, relationships between the terms “participation” and “teaching”.

Subject of the thesis is sexuality of people with intellectual disabilities and important issues related to it. The main goal of the theoretical part is to introduce the individual areas of sexuality of people with intellectual disabilities. The empirical part uses a survey to find out how the public views this issue. Other aims are to analyse collected data on the basis of differentiation of the profession, for selected items on the basis of differentation in terms of gender and age. The results of the survey show that awareness of the issue of sexuality of people with intellectual disabilities is at a low level in society, which often results in shyness about talking about such a topic or taking a closer interest in it. Although today's society may seem liberal and open to sexual issues, there are still a number of stereotypes and myths about the sexuality of people with intellectual disabilities that need to be dispelled through awareness-raising. KEYWORDS intellectual disability, sexuality, partnership, parentship, sexual education, sexual abuse, sexual assistance

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