Key messages

1. Students with intellectual disabilities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia face a number of academic problems due to their inability to adequately benefit from the offered curricula, as the educational services provided in schools are limited to the mild intellectual disability category. The first pillar in devising curricula for pupils with intellectual disabilities should take their characteristics and needs into account.
2. A functional curriculum contributes to shaping the personality of students with intellectual disabilities, and enhancing their positive personality traits, to be able to adapt socially, rely on themselves, and communicate with society effectively, and hence live independently.
3. The study showed improved independence skills of students who studied the functional curriculum, compared to their levels before studying it, and compared to students who did not study it.
4. The study emphasizes the importance of training special education teachers on the mechanism of using the functional curriculum in teaching and training students with intellectual disabilities. It also stresses the need to ensure applying the family partnership standard in planning, implementing and evaluating these students' curricula.
5. The researcher recommends applying the functional curriculum more broadly in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and reconsidering the conceptual education curricula currently used for people with different intellectual disabilities. She moreover calls for establishing a functional curriculum electronic database that serves as a reference for special education teachers, and facilitates the implementation of each pupil's individualized education plan.