Evidence-based educational practices for children and youths with intellectual disability

While all students need to take services with evidence-based practices, students with disabilities are one of the groups most exposed to practices that are not evidence-based. Therefore, this research aims to determine evidence-based practices for children and youths with intellectual disability between 0-22. This study used systematic review and meta-analysis as a research design. This meta-analysis included studies published in peer-reviewed journals between 1991-2020 (100 years). A comprehensive electronic search was conducted of databases to determine the studies to be included. 49.147 study were reached in this step. After the screening step, design standards and quality indicators assessment were carried out. The effect size was calculated for the obtained practices. Descriptive analysis was conducted for data from 2.021 participants in 270 studies. In this step, content analysis was conducted for the independent variables in the studies, and the same/similar practices were brought together. Then, the evidence status of the practices was evaluated according to the determined criteria. The assessment revealed that 15 practices were evidence-based practices that could be used to improve the performance of children and youths with intellectual disabilities, and 20 were promising practices. Developmental areas and age groups where evidence-based practices are effective have been determined. For reliability, at least two researchers separately and independently evaluated each study included in all steps. The inter-rater reliability findings are very high.