Education Support for Adults With an Intellectual Disability: A Tutor’s Reflection

Tutoring Context

Common Ground in South Brisbane, Australia, a high-rise apartment complex housing long-term formerly homeless individuals where the tutoring took place, bases itself on the Breaking Ground model in New York City. Once housed, an individual’s other issues such as finding work and undertaking education are addressed. Although the complex provides many support services, costs prohibit the offering of formal education support and tutoring.

In 2016, Common Ground advertised a support tutor position to give assistance to tenants with literacy challenges, teaching them reading and writing skills. Tenants sought educational support for many reasons, but mostly requested professional skilling such as needing qualifications for the workforce (Stein, Wanstreet, & Trinko, 2011). One student, a practicing chef, needed literacy support to pursue chef’s apprenticeship. This immediate need, however, evolved into over 2 years of support when he commenced a cookery certificate course. The student’s intellectual disability was not an initial barrier as he understood completing a certified cookery certificate qualification, a requisite for advancing to a head chef position, would be beneficial to undertake.

Being an adult with an intellectual disability can present many challenges to learning. Mirfin-Veitch (2003) stated adults with an intellectual disability believe they are unable to learn and achieve the academic standards nondisabled students do. As the tutor, I supported the student to achieve his goal of completing the course and overcome concerns about their ability to successfully pass the required courses. I obtained these skills in a nonclinical mental health support clubhouse where I tutored a student studying a community service certificate. In addition, I had many years as a senior citizen computer tutor. Adult educator Knowles (1973) influenced my approach to this task, especially his view that adult learners want relevant education and to be respected in the learning process. Establishing a collaborative tutoring relationship was crucial to develop and maintain, which was achieved with John (pseudonym), student in this field reflection.

Lessons From the Tutoring Relationship

Lessons learnt from the tutoring relationship stemmed from challenges of keeping the theoretical side of the course material interesting and engaging, and maintaining an appropriate division of support boundaries. First, working with the paid teaching staff at the student’s college, my role included making the theoretical course material interesting and relevant. John initially struggled with this, but by applying examples to the theory, he began to see its relevance to his chef work. For example, he had an excellent grasp of commercial kitchen operations but initially lacked confidence applying what he learned in lessons due to being overwhelmed with cooking and food preparation theory. He found complex terms challenging, such as French terms used in desserts, and understanding technical terms for food equipment.

To address this, I linked difficult words and concepts to everyday work examples in the kitchen. Not being a chef was not a hindrance to teaching the content because he explained the concepts of using equipment or ingredients in the cooking process to me. Encouraging him to grasp how important knowing these terms were and matching them to his previous understandings of them layed a foundation for successful lessons. He began to understand not just what they were used for, but why they were important to his work to use. His employer stated John’s increased understanding of why food preparation was important to be practiced in such precise ways improved John’s work performance and the quality of food dishes he prepared.

I used several tutoring strategies to maximize John’s successful completion of the course’s subjects. Reassuring the student of their progress and using strategies to breakdown complex tasks assist in relieving overwhelming feelings. For example, I taught him to search for key terms on the World Wide Web and critically assess the quality of the online information he found. This was crucial when he struggled with understanding why some cultures needed special food dietary requirements. The reassurance he could find out online why this was needed assisted not only with developing awareness of cultural issues in food preparation but also reassured him that he was understanding the content in the cultural dietary needs courses.

Second, not just teaching strategies but also keeping appropriate support boundaries was important to the relationship. Showing empathy and giving support to a student is necessary, but must remain focused on the goal of passing the assignments. Vulnerable students do ask tutors for emotional support. When student’s problems arise, they must be directed to other support staff particularly if they are emotionally distressed. Respectful reiteration of my role as being primarily an education support tutor was necessary. There is a difference between the typical educator’s boundaries and that of the external tutor. Formal arrangements and defined boundaries must be a part of the tutor student relationship. I assessed issues as they arose and directed John to other support staff that could provide the relevant assistance I could not.

Implications for Practice and Research

Tutoring adult learners with intellectual disabilities is rewarding and can lead them to pursue the careers that are open to them when they attain formal qualifications. An assessment of this reflection was it was successful because John passed his courses and disclosed he had begun to use the theoretical knowledge in his food preparation tasks. The implications for practice is appreciating that although the student has an intellectual disability, many adult learning principles still apply. Reassurance is a vital tutoring strategy to use to minimize the anxieties of writing large assignments and assessing if they are understanding course content. Patience is needed to go over work consistently and frequently, which can be acceptable in tutoring in this context as the pressure to complete tasks urgently is often removed.

Further research in informal tutoring arrangements for those living with intellectual or other disabilities should be a priority in adult education. There is generally a lack of discussion about what constitutes such arrangements and relationships as successful and what needs improvement. For example, question includes should this be a government-regulated area where tutors have formal qualifications and are trustworthy to be employed as external educational tutors? Studies need to measure the successes and outcomes of such work that can increase our knowledge about what specific practices lead to the best chances for the student to complete their studies. This field reflection illustrates what can be achieved for those living with an intellectual disability who benefit by having an external educational support tutor.