[Independent living skills for physically handicapped students with profound disability]

Traditional educational curricula are inadequate for physically disabled students with very severe consequences of disablement, as they are insufficiently geared toward building Independent Living skills. Typical of their post-school situation nowadays, only few of them are in a position of making a direct transition into vocational training. The majority continues to need intensive educational-therapeutic services. The schools for the physically disabled seek to smoothen their transition into adult life by leaving-grade programmes aimed at providing opportunities for work-related experience as well as at building coping skills for day-to-day living. The work and life preparation programme represents a special organizational and didactical conception in this context, where the demands of adult life serve as the starting point for developing the learning and educational goals to be attained.