Disability Fact Sheet SED SE250- Rossetti

Diagnostic Category/Name (from DSM-5, ASHA, etc.): Intellectual Disability

IDEA Category (Eligibility): Intellectual Disability

Specific Disabilities (or impairments) in this category, if applicable:

-significantly subaverage intellectual functioning with adaptive behavior deficits

Incidence (occurrence of new cases) and/or Prevalence (proportion of cases in the

population at a given time; includes both new and preexisting cases):
 IDEA (# of students with IEPs with this disability): 430,000 (6.7%)
 US Population: 1.27%
 World: 2.3% (based on IQ scores) 1% if accounting for adaptive functioning deficits

Etiology (Cause or origin; there may be multiple or it may be unknown):

-Genetic (35%)
-External trauma or toxins (1/3 cases)
-Unknown (1/3)
*Biomedical causes: 2/3 of severe ID (Down syndrome and Fragile X syndrome)

Diagnosis (Diagnostic criteria and process, i.e., how it is assessed):

-Assessing intellectual function and adaptive behavior:
-IQ tests (receiving a score of 70 or lower; 2 SD below the mean)
-Adaptive behavior scales (conceptual, social, and practical skills)
-Tests are administered by psychologist or someone familiar to student or
individual

Common characteristics:
“Mild”- (identified when entering school) Can function semi/independently in community
“Moderate”-(identified in preschool) More likely to have behavior and health problems
“Severe and Profound”-(identified at birth) Generally have CNS damage and health conditions
-Cognitive learning/functioning features:
-Learning rate: acquiring knowledge/skills much slower than children without disability
-Memory: trouble with working and short term memory (issues with recall for short term)
- Attention: Tend to engage with distracting and irrelevant items during a learning task
instead of attending to key aspects
-Generalization and maintenance: Fail to transfer knowledge to settings outside of which
they have learned the knowledge/skill and don’t apply them outside of class
-Motivation: some show lack of interest in learning or problem solving tasks, exhibit
learned helplessness, and may quickly give up on individual tasks
-Adaptive behavior features:
-Self-care/daily living: Need to learn basic skills such as dressing, eating, and hygiene
-Social relationships: Challenges with maintaining/sustaining friendships. Social isolation
caused by poor communication skills, inability to read other’s emotions, and unusual
behaviors
-Behavior features:
Disability Fact Sheet SED SE250- Rossetti

-Difficulty accepting criticism, limited self-control, and aggression and self-injury

Key interventions and approaches in school:
-Curriculum goals:
-Academic: instruction in gen ed reading, writing, and math (if not limiting)
*If stated by IEP, given specialized instruction (accommodation and modifications) to
curriculum
-Functional: practical skills that will help student perform more independently in home,
community, or school.
-Instructional methods:
-developing instructional targets based off of student’s current performance
-Frequently measure performance and use data to inform later instruction
-Develop strategies to increase generalization and maintenance of newly learned skills
-Explicit instruction:
-active student responses
-systematic feedback
-Task analysis: creating subtasks within a larger complex skill to make it easier to learn.
This helps to assess where student instruction should begin

Additional Resources (e.g., agencies, organizations, etc.):

-ARC (advocacy organization for people with intellectual disabilities)
-AAIDD (organization that created the defining labels of intellectual disabilities to help those
with said abilities get the supports they need)
-National Defense Education Act (Funding for teachers of students with intellectual disabilities
to be properly trained by professionals in the field)
-AAMR (Formerly; now the AAIDD)
-Rosa’s Law: replacing use of “retardation” in all federal statutes