what is a intellectual disability?

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i looked it up before but i still dont really understand it bit.

If somebody cannot take care of his/her daily needs (toileting, dressing, what are referred to as Activities of Daily Living) by adulthood, the person has a severe intellectual disability.

Basically, the person has trouble learning things in all subject areas (not just one as in a Specific Learning Disability), and also has trouble taking care of themself as kraftiekortie said. Or they have an IQ below 70.

It's a new term for mental retardation. It means someone who has an IQ of 70 or below.

I'm not sure whether I like the new term better, or the old term better. Any way you look at it, those people are underestimated all the time.

I think it just means the person is slow at learning, but there are different stages ranging from slight to severe.
I know I was always thought of as a slow learner but now I think it was Aspergers all along.

Definition: Significant limitations in both intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior, which covers many everyday social and practical skills.

So it's somewhat subjective but bottom line is whether the person can live on their own

Like beauty, it is in the eye, ear or cognitive bias of the beholder.

A man with smarts and money - meets a man with experience.

The man with experience gets smarter and money

The other gets an Experience.

I have trained people with much higher degrees than I will ever get.

One final observation for this time period.
A full cup can not be filled.
Signature of the moment.
Now and Zen I get it right

I just know it as being someone with an IQ below 70.
All the other significant autism impairments usually go along with it. But the IQ is the defining factor i think.
There are people who are completely unable to care for themselves, like Stephen Hawking for example, where intelligence is not a factor.

Yes, as far as I know, the way that it's determined is through one of the various IQ tests. Which is an arbitrary measure of general intelligence, which can't possibly take into account all of the variables and aspects of intelligence. But it's what they use to measure intelligence until there is a better method.

So yes, it's an IQ less than 70.

It's anything that happens to be convenient for invalidating you.

It's interesting to know that an adult can have been making a living and perfectly taking care of all their needs for years, and then be declared intellectually disabled and presumably stripped by force of all the freedoms an independent adult has if they happen to score lower than 70 in an IQ test.

Last edited by Spiderpig on 26 Mar 2016, 5:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

I know about the IQ thing but I found it more useful when Mom told me Cuz has a mental age of 5. Cuz lived to be 70 but didn't progress past that mental age. I don't know what to do with various IQs but I know what to do with a 5yo, so we got along great. Not only that, she was terrific at being a caregiver. Like any 5yo, she remembered rules and had not developed the distress that happens when you're older. So she was *better* than the rest of us at some things.

The thing about IQ is that it's not a flat line. Mine wobbles over and under Normal. It took a special test to find that out. But it's worth remembering, I think.

Do you have any evidence of that? Because I haven't heard of that happening to anyone. Maybe it did in the 30s, but not in many decades.

The DSM criteria for intellectual disability require both an IQ below 70 and impairment in activities of daily living. A person who is making a living and caring for their needs perfectly wouldn't meet the criteria no matter what their IQ is.

Plus, even people who clearly do meet criteria for ID don't necessarily lose all the freedoms of an independent adult. There are people with ID who are living independently (although they typically get some help in times of crisis at least) and even raising families. And these aren't people who slipped by undiagnosed - these are people who were diagnosed with ID in childhood and have gotten special education from a young age. (Such as people with Down Syndrome.)

The times I've heard of freedoms being taken away from someone due to ID, it's been in situations where there truly was reason for doubt regarding the person's ability to handle the situation, such as a parent with ID who doesn't know basic baby care skills, or a person living independently whose health is in danger due to self-neglect. Now, in some cases they could probably have just given the person extra support and education rather than taking away their freedoms, but it's not like they decided solely on IQ without any evidence about actual adaptive behaviour.

No, I don’t. It was a comment on the previous posts, which implied an IQ below 70 is enough.