Edsp

Chapter 5 – Learners with Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities

Intellectual Disability (ID) – refers to a limitation in thinking, while a developmental disability connotes a limitation that interferes with normal development of functions

* Negative connotations:

* Imbecile, Moron, Idiot, Mentally retarded

* Retard – accepted term

Mental Retardation (MR) – term used within the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004) and is still the prevailing code for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Texas

American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD)

* Professional organization for advocates for people with intellectual disabilities or severe cognitive delay

* Cautious with ID due to overrepresentation of ethnic or minority groups, the fact that the label can become stigmatizing and cause children to have poor self-esteem, and can be considered a socially constructed condition

* (7) ID definitions – most current definition is based on 2 important points:

1. ID involves problems with adaptive behavior, NOT just intellectual functioning

2. Intellectual Functioning & Adaptive Behavior can be improved

* AAIDD assumption Strengths are often present with Weaknesses

* Adaptive Behavior – social and practical intelligence that people have learned so that they can function in their everyday lives

* Adaptive Behavior & IQ – used together to determine whether a child is eligible for special education as a student with an intellectual disability

IDEA & Texas' Definition of MR

* IDEA defines MR as – significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance

* MR in TX – student must have been determined to have significant sub-average intellectual functioning based on a...