Identifying an (ID) Intellectual Disability is important to a young person, their family, carers and services e.g. education, health or social care. A variety of evidence should be considered when diagnosing or formulating, with a view to creating a person-centred plan to meet a person’s needs. It is very important to be aspirational for everyone with an ID in terms of quality of life and life outcomes. Having an ID should not be seen as an impairment, nor a barrier to having a good life and a full life like everyone else. Many terms have been used to describe ID or medical conditions linked to an ID. Some terms that were originally designed to describe levels of intellectual disability or specific medical conditions, have unfortunately become part of common derogatory language used within society and so have become insults; e.g. moron, idiot, imbecile, mental retard, feeble-minded, mentally deficient, mental impairment, cretin, spastic and the list goes on. Therefore, the words used to describe ID keep changing in order to move away from the negative connotations attached to them. Within mental health and other settings, the term ‘learning disability’ has been established for a number of years and many services still use this term. However, ‘Intellectual Disability’ is currently gaining favour as the preferred term by health professionals, but it is not consistently used. The International Classification of Diseases version 10 published by the World Health Organisation in 1993, is still in use. Currently the terminology used is ‘mental retardation’ which reflects an IQ of 69 or below with social competence difficulties (daily living skills) which are seen within the developmental period. This would place an individual’s IQ in approximately the bottom 2% of the population i.e. outside of the ‘normal’ range (World Health Organization [WHO], 1992).
See our written Intellectual Disabilities Topic Guide
Intellectual Disability (ID)
