Intelligence and Intellectual disability: Definition, Classification, and Systems of Supports Flashcards
intellectual disability
A) Significantly sub-average intellectual functioning IQ <70
– Reasoning, problem solving, abstract thinking, judgement, learning
– Causes substantial limitations in present functioning
B) Concurrent with related limitations in at least one or more of the following applicable adaptive skills areas:
- Communication
- Self-care
- Home living
- Social skills
- Community use
- Self-direction
- Health and safety
- Functional academics
- Leisure & work
C) Onset of intellectual and adaptive difficulties occurred during the developmental period (childhood)
intelligence
- individuals’ abilities to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to
the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of
reasoning, to overcome obstacles by careful thought - a psychobiological potential to solve problems or to
fashion products that are valued in at least one cultural context
Population Differences: The Flynn Effect
a secular increase in population IQ observed throughout the 20th century
Intelligence is shaped by culture and context
- Urban vs. rural
- Cultural values and practices
Factors that may contribute to the increase in IQ
- Education
- Stimulating environments
- Nutrition
- Better medical care
- Less in breeding (e.g., marriages between
cousins or other related family members)
means more genetic diversity
bird brain
Certain aspects of intelligence are universal and possibly similar across species
Savant syndrome
- art, musical abilities, calendar calculation, mathematics, and spatial skills
- 50% of savants have autism; the other 50% often have some form of brain injury/disease
- accessing low-level, less-processed information that exists in all human brains but is normally unavailable to conscious awareness
History of ID
- Swiss Physician Felix Platter
– DIFFERENTIATION - “simple-minded” since infancy persons born with identifiable physical anomalies
- Currently more than 1000 organic conditions associated with intellectual disability
History of ID: Edward Zigler
- Dr. Zigler distinguished persons with a clear, organic cause of their ID from those displaying no clear cause
- Genetic cause such as an extra chromosome like Down syndrome
Organic type of ID - Genetic familial transmission of ID part of the natural variation of IQ in the general population
Familial type of ID
Politics of Eugenics
- Dugdale a sociologist wrote a report
intended to be used as evidence for the
need for better social welfare and
improved environments for persons from
impoverished backgrounds
– His words were twisted to support the
argument for legal restrictions on
opportunities to reproduce - sterilization laws were implemented in
twenty-five states between 1907 and 1936 - Supreme Court decision that ruled in support of the sterilization laws in
Virginia, USA
– Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr wrote: - “It is better for all of the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate
offspring for crime, or let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent
those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind… Three generations
of imbeciles are enough” (Buck vs. Bell, 1927)
– In all, more than 60,000 people—including 7,600 in North
Carolina—were forcibly sterilized in the United States in the name
of “progress.”
– In North Carolina, the last forced sterilization was performed as
late as 1974
Institutionalization of children with ID
- Persons with intellectual disability housed in large poorly funded and staffed institutions
- Families are told there are no other options
- New York State Senator Robert Kennedy and a television crew visit Willowbrook State School 1965
- He likens the conditions at Willowbrook to that of a “snake pit,” and states that the residents of these institutions were “denied access to education and are deprived of their civil liberties.”
Deinstituionalization
1972, Geraldo Rivera exposed the conditions of the Willowbrook State
School, state funded institution on Staten Island, NY that housed 6000
persons with intellectual disability
The two tails of the distribution: intellectual disability and giftedness
- Mild Intellectual disability IQ 50 to 70
- Moderate Intellectual disability IQ 35 to 49
- Severe Intellectual disability IQ 20 to 34
- Profound Intellectual disability IQ less than 20
- Mildly Gifted – 115 to 129
- Moderately Gifted – 130 to 144
- Highly Gifted – 145 to 159
- Exceptionally Gifted – 160 to 179
- Profoundly Gifted – 180
Application of the definition of ID
1) valid assessment that are designed for cultural and linguistic diversity differences in communication & behavioral factors
2) limitations in adaptive skills occurs within context of environments typical of age peers
3) adaptive limitations often coexist with strengths in other adaptive skills or personal capabilities
4) with appropriate supports over a sustained period, life functioning of persons with ID will generally improve
Consideration of environments
Specific settings in which the person lives, learns, plays, works, socializes, & interacts
Positive environments are settings that are
◦ typical of their age peers
◦ appropriate for the individuals’ cultural background
Characteristics of desirable environment
◦ provide opportunities for fulfilling needs
◦ foster well being in physical, social, material, & cognitive life areas
◦ promote sense of stability, predictability & control
Individual Functioning varies
- Intellectual limitations affect ability to cope with ordinary challenges of everyday living
- Every person with ID will differ in nature, extent, and severity of functional limitations depending on
- demands/constraints of environment (e.g., farming community vs. big city)
- presence or absence of supports
Assessing the intellectual limitation
- Significantly sub-average intellectual capabilities (IQ score of approximately 70 to 75 or below)
– *Use of confidence intervals - validity of IQ test must be ascertained
- valid assessments must be free from errors caused by:
- motor
- sensory
- emotional
- language and cultural factors
Assessing the adaptive functioning limitation
- Importance of limitations in adaptive skills in addition to the cognitive limitations
– Confirms functional limitations
– Reflects the linkage of these functional limitations to the need for services
– DSM 5 at least one area must be 2 SD below the mean - Adaptive difficulties derive from limitations in practical and social intelligence
– practical intelligence refers to - ability to independently manage the ordinary activities of daily living
– social intelligence refers to - ability to understand social expectations
- ability to judge appropriately how to behave in social situations
Assessing age of onset
- Current definition emphasizes the developmental period as the time in which ID is initially manifested
– Different and inexact cutoff points for the age at which the developmental period ends - cutoff used to be set arbitrarily at age 18 (19 in BC)
– corresponds to the end of high-school education
– when many persons assume adult roles
Distinguishable from an acquired ID such as brain injury or disease
Is ID an enduring condition?
- Limitations in intellectual functioning are not likely to change, but the impact of intellectual limitations on functioning may change
- Person with intellectual limitations may move in and out of the constraints of the definition of intellectual disability depending on whether their abilities match the demands of their environment or not
Comprehensive assessment includes
- Life-long monitoring
– Differences in what is assessed at different ages - Educational and vocational placements
- Quality of life
- Mental health
Horowitz’s chapter highlights
- Matching experience with organism
– What does this imply for ID? - Purposely engineered experience
– What are examples? - Parallels between gifted and ID
– How are they similar?
