Including students with Down’s syndrome: Barriers’ analysis and strategies to overcome them arising from the literature

Inclusive education (IE) is based on equity and social justice, and implies guaranteeing access, participation, learning and development of students to their fullest potential within general education contexts. Studies have shown that students with intellectual and developmental disabilities have not benefited from IE on a same basis than other students due to contextual barriers, being students with Down’s syndrome (DS) one of the groups of students who have strongly advocated for their right to be included. The purpose of this literature review is to identify the barriers that attempt against the inclusion of students with DS and account for strategies mentioned to overcome these obstacles for the stage of primary education (6–12 years old). A search for the period 2006–2020 was conducted using the search engine EBSCOHost (i.e., including databases ERIC, PsycINFO, Psicodoc, Academic Search Complete, and Psycarticles), and the Web of Science and Scopus databases. Results revealed the presence of attitudinal, didactic, collaborative, communicative, organizational, and teachers’ training barriers towards the inclusion of students with DS, which systematically hinders the possibilities of the effective inclusion of students with DS affecting the four goals of IE. Strategies found in the studies included to overcome these barriers are also reported. Implications for research and practice, and future lines of research are discussed.