Intellectual Disability
The construct of intellectual disability has developed over centuries and has had
different functions at different times; from a concept that was used to describe people
from whom society needed protecting from in the late to 19th and early 20th centuries, to
one used to describe people who are unable to cope in the current environment. It is now
defined in terms of having a measured IQ below a fixed cut off point, usually 70, and a
low level of adaptive behaviour also often specified in terms of being below a cut off
point. Intellectual Disability demonstrates that neither IQ nor adaptive
behaviour can be measured with sufficient accuracy for fixed cut off points to be used and
suggests a number of new much more loosely defined constructs of intellectual disability
based on clinical judgment.
1. History and Definitions
2. The Concept of Intelligence
3. Measuring Intelligence
4. The Concept and Measurement of Adaptive Behaviour
5. Acquiring a Diagnosis and the Prevalence of Intellectual Disability
6. Causes of Intellectual Disability
7. Problems with the Current Definition
8. Intellectual Disability Reconceptualised and Redefined
208 pages, Hardcover