1. Intellectual Disabilities
Information and Classifications
DSM-5

2. Prevalence – Intellectual Disability
Intellectual disability is a type of neurodevelopmental disorder impacting approximately 2 to 3 percent of the population.
Categories are based on scores obtained through the use of age- standardized tests of cognitive ability.
Issues can involve cognitive issues alone or be paired with physical difficulties.
The U.S. Department of Education reports 5,971,495 students receiving special education services in the school year. Of that number, 9.6%, or 573,264 students, received special education services based on a classification of intellectually disabled.

3. Origins – Intellectual Disability
Malformation of the brain or damage to the brain at a critical period during pre- or post-natal development.
Prenatal causes of intellectual disability include exposure to teratogens including alcohol and other drugs, radiation, diseases such as herpes, syphilis, rubella, or prolonged maternal fever during the first trimester; or untreated maternal phenylketonuria (PKU).
Complications of prematurity, especially in extremely low-birth-weight infants, or postnatal exposure to lead can also cause intellectual disability.
Intellectual disability may also be the result of chromosomal disorders such as Down Syndrome.

4. Characteristics – Intellectual Disability
The two characteristics shared by the different levels by individuals with intellectual disabilities involve:
Limitations in intellectual functioning: difficulties with memory recall and may demonstrate a tendency towards low motivation and learned helplessness.
Issues in adaptive behavior may include difficulties with conceptual skills, social skills, and practical skills. Often exhibit deficits in decision making, problem solving, and goal-setting.

5. Characteristics – Intellectual Disability
A child with a significant intellectual deficit will not be able to cognitively “catch up” to his peers in terms of intelligence and academic performance. It is more often true and the child will fall further behind as he/she gets older, particularly if no appropriate academic supports are implemented.
The child with an intellectual disability will learn and understand far fewer things at a much slower pace than the average child, and intellectual development will always be significantly impaired.

6. Characteristics – Intellectual Disability
The child with an intellectual deficit will continue to learn and understand some aspects of the world, but cognitive growth is less complete and there will remain significant gaps in the child’s knowledge base.
Because new learning is filtered through a younger mental context in children with intellectual disabilities, the quality of what is learned and how it is applied will be far different than the perspective of a typically developing peer.

7. Intellectual Disability-Not Mental Retardation
While mental retardation was originally used to describe individuals with low IQ scores, it came to be associated with a a negative viewpoint and was often used as a “put down” for those the term was used towards.
In 2010 Barack Obama signed into law Rosa’s Law (named after a Maryland girl with Down syndrome whose family advocated for the eradication of the “R” word).
The DSM-5 has replaced the diagnosis of mental retardation with intellectual disability.

8. Severity Level– Intellectual Disability
Diagnostic criteria for intellectual disability emphasizes the assessment of both cognitive skills and adaptive functioning.
According to the DSM-5, the level of severity is based on the ability of the individual to meet developmental and sociocultural standards for independence and social responsibility and NOT IQ score.
The DSM-5 provides a table listing severity levels across three different domains (conceptual, social, and practical).

9. Categorizations according to the DSM-5
Conceptual Domain: Addresses issues involved with challenges in language, reading, writing, math, reason, knowledge and memory.

10. Categorizations according to the DSM-5
Social Domain: Addresses issues of deficits in empathy, social judgment, interpersonal communication skills and the ability to make and maintain friendships.

11. Categorizations according to the DSM-5
Practical domain: Addresses deficits in self-management areas such as personal care, job responsibilities, money management and organizing school and work tasks.