The Role of New Media Technologies in Improving Communication Skills of Intellectual Disabled Individuals

Abstract

The communication and social skills of individuals with mental disabilities are considerably behind their peers with normal development. These individuals’ educational needs vary depending on their distinct traits. There is an increasing need to improve communication skills in order to minimize the problems experienced by these mentally handicapped individuals in the family, at school, at all levels of social life, and in interpersonal relationships. Considering their characteristics, educational environments designed for these individuals should be set up in such a way that they can make full use of educational opportunities. Emerging from the application of computer and information-processing developments to the field of communication and starting to direct the relations between individuals with the use of the Internet and technological devices together, new media has also been introduced into educational environments, and changes have started to be seen in the educational processes of individuals with intellectual disabilities. New media technologies aim to optimize learning settings for students who show different developmental characteristics than their peers and learn differently from them. Educational environments where new media technologies are used as auxiliary materials provide these individuals the opportunity to learn individually in line with their own abilities and therefore improve the quality of education. New media technologies support the development of communication skills in individuals with mental disabilities, as well as their reading, writing, and math skills, according to their disability area. This study, in this regard, provides information on the development of communication skills in individuals with mental disabilities to socially integrate and conduct interpersonal interactions in a healthy way and offers suggestions for the use of new media tools to improve the communication skills of individuals with mental disabilities.