On an international level, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) (United Nations, 2006) represents a significant step in changing views of disability and a key instrument for advancing social and educational policies and practices (Shogren and Turnbull, 2014). Article 19 of the Convention establishes the right of all persons with disabilities to decide where they want to live and with whom, and to access support that allows them equal access to community resources. However, research shows that people with intellectual difficulties experience many difficulties exercising this right. Research conducted in the international arena over the past two decades indicates that although the community-based support model provides greater opportunities for social inclusion than the institutional model (Mansell et al, 2010), that quality of life improves for people with ID when they are offered support to live in their own community (Chowdhury and Benson, 2011; Young, 2006) and that this is the space in which people with ID usually prefer to live (Deguara et al, 2012; Inclusive Research Network, 2010), an imbalance exists between the support services for independent living (IL) offered to people with ID and their own aspirations and demands. The transition from institutional services towards providing personalized support on a community level is progressing very slowly, and both barriers at the level of training people with disabilities and inadequate support by professionals to help them live as they wish (Abbott and McConkey, 2006; Inclusive Research Network, 2010) are detected. Furthermore, particularities of life cycle may determine both the needs and specific responses to the demands of people with disabilities, meaning that support must be designed in a personalized manner taking into account the stage of life each individual is in (Shaw et al, 2011).

In order to make advances in the approaches to IL proposed by the CRPD, research is needed on barriers to the emancipation of people with ID on different levels and on the support required to help them achieve their life goals at various stages of their life. In this context, the aims of our study were:

1. To identify the challenges facing people in deciding where they want to live and with whom, and in accessing support that allows them equal access to community resources at different stages of their life cycle. These challenges may be in the institutional, political, social, curricular, cultural or family spheres.

2. To identify types of support in the various spheres that help this process.  

3. To propose, based on the results obtained from the above, actions to be undertaken in the family and educational spheres, and social policies aimed at ensuring compliance with Article 19 of the CRPD. 

The research was carried out in Spain, which ratified the CRPD in 2008 and where a new law (on the rights of people with disabilities and their social inclusion) was enacted in 2013 to articulate support for people with intellectual disabilities in accordance with the proposals of the Convention. 

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