Down syndrome in institutions – Global support

Down Syndrome in Institutions: Comprehensive Support

Understanding the specificities, adapting practices, and promoting daily autonomy

👩‍⚕️ Target Audience Educational teams and professionals supporting individuals with Down syndrome in ESAT, life homes, IME, or SESSAD who wish to deepen their understanding of the specificities related to Down syndrome and develop concrete support strategies.

⏱️ Duration 2 days (14 hours) divided into 8 progressive modules

💰 Price 630 € VAT included

💻 Format 100% online training, accessible from your computer or tablet. You progress at your own pace, whenever you wish, without time constraints.

What You Will Learn

This training offers you an in-depth understanding of the motor, cognitive, and emotional specificities related to Down syndrome, and provides you with concrete tools to adapt your daily support. You will discover why simple gestures require more effort, how to facilitate communication, and how to create an environment conducive to autonomy.

Through practical strategies that can be directly applied in institutions, you will learn to use routines and visual supports, to assist with emotion management, to promote socialization and inclusion, and to manage challenging behaviors. You will also adapt your approach to supporting adults, respecting their dignity and self-determination.

By the end of this training, you will be able to:

• Understand motor specificities: hypotonia, hyperlaxity, impact on balance, posture, and movement, increased fatigue
• Identify cognitive specificities: processing time, limited working memory, difficulties with abstract concepts, strength of long-term memory, preference for visual channels
• Recognize why daily gestures require more effort: coordination, fine motor skills, cumulative fatigue, practical implications for work organization
• Understand communication specificities: oro-facial difficulties, asymmetry in understanding/expression, strengths in non-verbal communication
• Recognize signs of frustration related to communication: anger, withdrawal, emotional outbursts, behaviors as attempts at communication
• Create an environment that facilitates communication: pictograms, photos, gestures and signs, adapted instructions, multimodality
• Support daily communication: language immersion, rephrasing, expansion, patient waiting, celebrating efforts
• Use routines as a lever for autonomy: reassuring predictability, automation of learning, backward chaining technique
• Create and use visual supports: visual sequences, schedules, binary choices
• Manage transitions and changes: gradual announcements, temporal supports, transition rituals, unexpected changes
• Understand emotional experiences: intensity, difficulties in identification/verbalization/regulation, role of overload, predictable triggers
• Implement emotional prevention strategies: adapted environment, withdrawal spaces, emotion thermometer, choice wheel, sensory techniques
• Intervene during an emotional overflow: safety, calm, minimal communication, crisis support, post-crisis debriefing
• Understand social specificities: relational qualities, social naivety and vulnerability, frequent misunderstandings, concrete risks
• Teach social skills: waiting for one’s turn, greeting, asking, refusing, understanding others’ emotions, role-playing, cooperation
• Create an inclusive environment: group dynamics, adapted games, preparation for new situations, inclusion in the community
• Understand the origins of challenging behaviors: behavior as communication, frequent causes, becoming a “behavior detective”
• Prevent challenging behaviors: structured environment, adapted communication, alternative means of expression, positive reinforcement
• Intervene during challenging behavior: refusal, agitation, shouting, aggression, post-crisis
• Adapt support for adulthood: respecting self-determination, avoiding infantilization, early aging, mental health
• Support the autonomy of adults: in ESAT, in homes, emotional life, inclusion in the community
• Work in teams and with families: multidisciplinary coordination, personalized project, coherence between environments, self-care

You will leave with concrete tools: customizable visual sequences, schedules, needs cards and pictograms, emotion thermometer, regulation choice wheel, analysis grids for challenging behaviors, and a progress tracking journal.

Bonus: Discovery of the COCO PENSE and COCO BOUGE applications (children 5-10 years) and JOE brain coach (teenagers and adults) to stimulate cognitive functions essential for autonomy.