Research activities
The research carried out within the Clinical Orthopedagogy Unit concerns, on both the evaluation (of the quality of life and/or services) and the support of people with disabilities throughout their lives. This research focuses on maintaining or even improving life satisfaction, the skills of the person in the various developmental domains and their environment, as well as on improving the support skills of professional and non-professional caregivers.
The main research themes of the unit are
- Health promotion and inclusive health care for people with disabilities
- Evidence-based practices for school inclusion, including distance learning
- Attachment and behavioural disorders in adults with intellectual disabilities
- Promoting self-determination in adults with intellectual disabilities
- Identification of support needs and planning of services for people with disabilities
- Relational, emotional and sexual life of adults with intellectual disabilities and other neurodevelopmental disorders
- Assessment and support focused on quality of life for people with intellectual disabilities and/or dual diagnosis
Examples of projects funded within the service:
DOMO-Decide On My Own (ERDF; 2018-2022). This project aims to enable the identification and adaptation of new information and communication technologies in relation to the needs of people with intellectual disabilities, with or without associated disabilities. This is to facilitate and promote their self-determination and inclusion in society.
https://projetdomo.org/projet/
ParkinsonCom (Interreg; 2020-2022). The ambition of this project is to co-construct, and make available, a software tool to assist communication with and for people with Parkinson’s disease and their relatives. In other words, the challenge is to create a system targeting individual communication difficulties while taking into account the evolution of the disease. The ParkinsonCom project is part of a cross-border dynamic (Interreg-5) involving psychologists and educational therapists from the Clinical Orthopedagogy Unit of the University of Mons.
ONE “Coherence of the accompaniment of parents with intellectual disabilities in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation” (2021-2023). This research project, conducted in collaboration with ONE, is the result of an inter-university partnership between UMONS (ASBL AIO), UCLOUVAIN, ULille, ULiège and the associative sector (ASBL ARAPH). It aims to understand the logics of the support pathways (facilitators, breaking points) of parents and future parents with an intellectual disability during the perinatal period up to the child’s second birthday.
Our service is also associated with the following UMONS research institutes :
