Learners

with
Intellectual
Disabilities
Lesson 5 – Exceptional Psychology
Idiocracy
Imbecile
Feebleminded
Simpleton
Mental Deficiency
Mental Retardation
INTELLECTUAL
DISABILITY
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) defines
ntellectual disability as

"defined as significantly subaverage general

intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with
deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during
the developmental period, that adversely affects a
child’s educational performance”
Three (3) criteria for diagnosis
of Intellectual Disability

1. “significant subaverage
intellectual functioning”
must be demonstrated

The word significant refers to a

score of > 2 standard deviations
below the mean on
a standardized intelligence test (a
score of approximately 70 or less)
Three (3) criteria for diagnosis
of Intellectual Disability

2. An individual must also have significant

difficulty with tasks of everyday living (adaptive
behavior).
27-year-old with severe intellectual
disabilities
 Three (3) criteria for diagnosis
of Intellectual Disability

3. The deficits in intellectual functioning and

adaptive behavior must occur during the
developmental period (before age 18) to help
distinguish intellectual disability from other
disabilities

(e.g., impaired intellectual performance due to

traumatic brain injury).

A child who exhibits substantial limitations in

intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior will
automatically meet the IDEA requirement that the
disability “adversely affects a child’s
educational performance.”
CLASSIFICATION
OF INTELLECTUAL
DISABILITY
IDENTIFICATION
AND
ASSESSMENT
I. Assessing
Intellectual
Functioning
Assessing Intellectual Functioning
• Assessment of a child’s intellectual functioning requires the
administration of an intelligence (IQ) test by a school psychologist
or other trained professional

An IQ test consists of a series of questions:

 Vocabulary
 Similarities
Problem Solving
Memory
Other tasks
Assessing Intellectual Functioning
• IQ tests are standardized tests; that is, the
same questions and tasks are always
presented in a prescribed way, and the same
scoring procedures are used each time
the test is administered.
• IQ tests are also norm-referenced tests.
"norm-referenced test is administered to a large
sample of people selected at random from the
population for whom the test is intended.
Developers then use the scores of people in the
norming sample to represent how scores on the
test are generally distributed throughout that
population"
Assessing Intellectual Functioning
• The AAIDD’s criterion for “significant limitations of intellectual
functioning,” a requirement for a diagnosis of intellectual
disability, is an IQ score approximately 2 standard deviations
below the mean, which is a score of 70 or below on the two
most widely used intelligence tests, the Wechsler Intelligence
Scale for Children (WISC-IV) (Wechsler, 2003) and the
Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales (Roid, 2003a).
Assessing Intellectual Functioning
• According to the AAIDD, the IQ cutoff
score of 70 is intended as a guideline
and should NOT be interpreted as a
hard-and-fast requirement.

• A higher IQ score of 75 or more may

also be associated with intellectual
disabilities if, according to a clinician’s
judgment, the child exhibits deficits in
adaptive behavior thought to be
caused by impaired
intellectual functioning.
Several additional important consideration in
using Intelligence Tests

• Intelligence is a hypothetical construct.

• An IQ test measures only how a child performs at one
point in time on the items included on the test.
• IQ scores can change significantly.
• Intelligence testing is not an exact science
Several additional important consideration in
using Intelligence Tests

• Intelligence tests can be culturally biased.

• An IQ score should never be used as the sole basis
for making a diagnosis of intellectual disability or a
decision to provide or deny special education
services.
• An IQ score should not be used to determine IEP
objectives
II.
Assessing
Adaptive
Behavior
Assessing Adaptive Behavior
Adaptive behavior is

“the collection of conceptual,

social, and practical skills
that have been learned by
people in order to function in
their everyday lives”

(AAIDD Ad Hoc Committee on Terminology and Classification, 2010, p. 43)

Assessing Adaptive Behavior
Numerous instruments for assessing adaptive behavior have been
developed. Most consist of a series of questions that a person familiar
with the individual (e.g., a teacher, parent, or caregiver) answers.

 Adaptive Behavior Scale

 AIDD Diagnostic Adaptive Behavior Scale
 Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales
 Adaptive Behavior Assessment System-II
Adaptive Behavior Scale
• Frequently used instrument for assessing adaptive behavior by school-age
children

The ABS-S:2 consists of two parts:

 Part 1
• contains 10 domains related to independent functioning and daily living
skills (e.g., eating, toilet use, money handling, numbers, time)
Part 2
• assesses the individual’s level of maladaptive (inappropriate) behavior in
seven areas (e.g., trustworthiness, self-abusive behavior, social engagement)
• ABS-RC:2, assesses adaptive behavior in residential and community settings
AAIDD Diagnostic Adaptive Behavior
Scale
• designed for use with individuals from
4 to 21 years old,
• includes a cutoff point at which an
individual is considered to have
significant limitations in
adaptive behavior.
• DABS provides critical information on
determining a diagnosis of intellectual
disability.
Vineland Adaptive
Behavior Scales
• The Interview Editions in Survey
Form or Expanded Form are
administered by an individual who
is very familiar with the person
being assessed, such as a parent,
teacher, or a direct caregiver
• Available in three versions
 Adaptive Behavior
Assessment System-II
• Provides a
comprehensive assessment of
10 specific adaptive skills in
three domains (conceptual,
social, and practical)
• Five different forms are
available for use with individuals
from birth to age 89.
CHARACTERISTIC
S
Cognitive Functioning
MEMORY
• Students with intellectual disabilities have
difficulty remembering information
• The more severe the cognitive
impairment, the greater the memory
problems
• Students with intellectual disabilities have
trouble retaining information in short-
term memory
• Students with intellectual disabilities do not
tend to use such strategies spontaneously
but can be taught to do so, with
improved performance on memory-related
and problem-solving tasks as an outcome
of such strategy instruction
Cognitive Functioning
LEARNING RATE
• The rate at which children with intellectual
disabilities acquire new knowledge and
skills is well below that of typically
developing children
• A frequently used measure of learning rate
is trials to criterion—the number of practice
or instructional trials needed before a
student can respond correctly without
prompts or assistance
• Students with intellectual disabilities learn
more slowly, some educators have
assumed that instruction should be slowed
down to match their lower rate of learning
Cognitive Functioning
ATTENTION
• Students with intellectual disabilities are
typically slower to attend to relevant
features of a learning task than are students
without disabilities and instead may focus
on distracting irrelevant stimuli
• Individuals with intellectual disabilities often
have difficulty sustaining attention to
learning tasks. These attention problems
compound and contribute to a student’s
difficulties in acquiring, remembering, and
generalizing new knowledge and skills.
Cognitive Functioning
ATTENTION
• Effective instructional design for students
with intellectual disabilities must
systematically control for the presence and
saliency of critical stimulus dimensions as
well as the presence and effects of
distracting stimuli.
• After initially directing a student’s attention
to the most relevant feature of a simplified
task and reinforcing correct responses, the
teacher can gradually increase the
complexity and difficulty of the task.
Cognitive Functioning
GENERALIZATION AND MAINTENANCE
• Students with disabilities, especially those
with intellectual disabilities, have trouble
using their new knowledge and skills
in settings or situations that differ
from the context in which they first
learned those skills.
• Such transfer, or generalization, of
learning occurs without explicit
programming for many children without
disabilities but may not be evident in
students with intellectual disabilities
without specific programming to facilitate
it.
Cognitive Functioning
MOTIVATION
• Some students with intellectual disabilities exhibit an apparent
lack of interest in learning or in problem-solving tasks
• Some individuals with intellectual disabilities develop learned
helplessness, which describes an individual’s expectation of failure,
regardless of his efforts, based on experiences of repeated failure.
Cognitive Functioning
MOTIVATION
• In an attempt to minimize or offset failure, the person may
set extremely low expectations for himself and not appear to try
very hard.
• The apparent lack motivation may be the product of frequent failure
and prompt dependency acquired as the result of others’ caretaking
• Teaching self-determination skills to students with intellectual
disabilities is helping more and more of these students become self-
reliant problem solvers
Adaptive
Behavior
SELF-CARE AND DAILY
LIVING SKILLS
• Individuals with
intellectual disabilities
who require extensive
supports must often be
taught basic self-care
skills such as
dressing, eating, and
hygiene.
Adaptive Behavior
SELF-CARE AND DAILY LIVING
SKILLS
• Direct instruction and
environmental supports such as
added prompts and simplified
routines are necessary to ensure
that deficits in these adaptive areas
do not seriously limit one’s quality
of life
Adaptive Behavior
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
• Making and sustaining friendships and personal
relationships present significant challenges for many children with
intellectual disabilities
• Poor communication skills, inability to recognize the emotional
state of others, and unusual or inappropriate behaviors when
interacting with others can lead to social isolation
• Teaching appropriate social and interpersonal skills to students
with intellectual disabilities is one of the most important functions
of special education
Adaptive Behavior
BEHAVIORAL EXCESSES AND CHALLENGING BEHAVIOR
• Students with intellectual disabilities are more likely to exhibit
behavior problems than are children without disabilities
• Difficulty accepting criticism, limited self-control, and bizarre
and inappropriate behaviors such as aggression or self-injury are
observed more often in children with intellectual disabilities than
in children without disabilities

"the more severe the intellectual impairment, the higher the

incidence and severity of problem behavior"
Adaptive Behavior
BEHAVIORAL EXCESSES AND CHALLENGING BEHAVIOR
• Individuals with intellectual disabilities and psychiatric conditions
requiring mental health supports are considered as dual-diagnosis
cases.
• Although comprehensive guidelines are available for treating
psychiatric and behavioral problems of people with
intellectual disabilities, much more research is needed on how best to
support this population

"Data from one report showed that approximately 10% of all people with
intellectual disabilities had mental health problems"
Positive Attributes
• Descriptions of the learning characteristics and adaptive behavior
of individuals with intellectual disabilities focus on limitations and
deficits and paint a picture of a monolithic group of people whose
most important characteristics revolve around the absence of
desirable traits.
• But individuals with intellectual disabilities are a huge
and disparate group composed of people with highly individual
personalities
• Many children and adults with intellectual disabilities display
tenacity and curiosity in learning, get along well with others, and
are positive influences on those around them
PREVALENCE,
CAUSES, AND
PREVENTION
PREVALENCE
• Many factors contribute to the difficulty of estimating the number
of people with intellectual disabilities.

• Some of these factors include:

changing definitions of intellectual disabilities
 the schools’ reluctance to label children with mild intellectual
impairment
 the changing status of schoolchildren with mild intellectual
disabilities (some are declassified during their school careers;
others are no longer identified after leaving school)
CAUSES
• More than 350 risk factors
associated with intellectual
disabilities have been identified
• Approximately 35% of cases
have a genetic cause, another
third involve external trauma or
toxins, and etiology remains
unknown for another third of
cases
• AAIDD categorizes etiologic
factors associated with
intellectual disabilities :
prenatal, perinatal, postnatal
Biomedical Causes
• More common prenatal conditions that often result in intellectual disabilities
• Down syndrome and fragile X syndrome are the two most common genetic
causes of intellectual disabilities
• These conditions, diseases, and syndromes are commonly associated with
intellectual disabilities, but they may or may not result in the deficits
of intellectual and adaptive functioning that define intellectual
disabilities.

“Because intellectual disability is characterized by impaired functioning, its

etiology is whatever causes this impairment in functioning”
(AAIDD Ad Hoc Committee, 2010, p. 61).
Environmental Causes
• Individuals with mild intellectual disabilities, those who require less
intensive supports, make up about 90% of all people with
intellectual and developmental disabilities
• The vast majority of those individuals show no evidence of organic
pathology—no brain damage or other biological problem.
• When no biological risk factor is evident, the cause is presumed to
be psychosocial disadvantage, environmental influences such as
poverty, minimal opportunities to develop early language, child
abuse and neglect, and/or chronic social or sensory deprivation.
PREVENTION
• Medical advances have noticeably reduced the incidence of intellectual
disabilities caused by some of the known biological factors
• Probably the biggest single preventive strike against intellectual
disabilities (and many other disabling conditions, including blindness
and deafness) was the development of an effective rubella vaccine
(German measles) in 1962.
• When rubella (German measles) is contracted by mothers during the
first 3 months of pregnancy, it causes severe damage in 10% to 40% of
unborn children. Fortunately, this cause of intellectual disabilities can
be eliminated if women are vaccinated for rubella before becoming
pregnant.
PREVENTION
• Advances in medical science have
enabled doctors to identify certain
genetic influences associated with
intellectual disabilities.
• Genetic disorders are detected
during pregnancy by two types of
tests: screening procedures and
diagnostic tests.
PREVENTION: Screening
Tests
• Obstetricians routinely provide noninvasive screening procedures,
such as ultrasound and maternal serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), to
women whose pregnancy is considered at risk for a congenital
disability. Maternal serum screening measures the amount of
AFP and other biochemical markers in the mother’s bloodstream
and can identify pregnancies at risk for disabilities such as Down
syndrome and spina bifida
PREVENTION: Diagnostic
•Test
Diagnostic tests, such as amniocentesis and chorionic villi sampling, can
confirm the presence of various disorders associated with intellectual disabilities.

• Amniocentesis
 requires withdrawing a sample of fluid from the amniotic sac surrounding the
fetus during the second trimester of pregnancy (usually the 14th to 17th week).
 Fetal cells are removed from the amniotic fluid and grown in a cell culture for about
2 weeks. At that time, a chromosome and enzyme analysis is performed to identify
the presence of about 80 specific genetic disorders before birth.

Many of these disorders, such as Down syndrome, are associated with intellectual
disabilities.
PREVENTION: Diagnostic
Test
• Chorionic villi sampling (CvS)
a small amount of chorionic tissue (a fetal component of the
developing placenta) is removed and tested
can be performed earlier than amniocentesis (during the 8th to
10th week of pregnancy)
Amniocentesis and CVS are invasive procedures that entail some
risk of miscarriage.
Genetic Counseling
• Women who are at risk for giving birth
to a baby with a disability on the
basis of the parents’ genetic
backgrounds are commonly referred
for genetic counseling
• Genetic counseling consists of a
discussion between a specially trained
medical counselor and the prospective
parents about the possibility that they
may give birth to a child with
disabilities.
EDUCATIONAL
APPROACHES
What do students with intellectual disabilities need to learn?
CURRICULUM GOALS
Academic Curriculum
• All students with intellectual disabilities should receive instruction
in the basic skills of reading, writing, and math
• Teachers must carefully assess each student’s current routines to
find those skills that the student requires and/or could use often
• Educators should also consider skills that future environments are
likely to require.

Functional academics are “the most useful parts” of reading,

writing, arithmetic, and science for the student
CURRICULUM GOALS
Functional Curriculum
• Learning functional curriculum content increases a student’s
independence, self-direction, health and fitness, and
enjoyment in everyday school, home, community, and work
environments.
• A wide range of practical skills, such as using public
transportation , shopping, ordering in a restaurant, cooking and
food safety, telling time and nutrition and fitness
CURRICULUM GOALS
Functional Curriculum
• The ultimate approach to determining if a given skill qualifies as
functional curriculum is to contemplate this question from the
student’s perspective: “Will I need it when I’m 21?”

• General and special educators who teach students with

intellectual disabilities should seek to align the academic and
functional curricula in ways that allow each student to benefit as
much as possible from access to the general education
curriculum while learning from a personalized curriculum of
functional skills across life domains
CURRICULUM GOALS
Self-determination
• Self-determined learners set personal goals, plan steps
for achieving those goals, choose and implement a course of
action, evaluate their performance, and make adjustments in
what they are doing to reach their goals.
• Learning self-determination skills can serve as a curriculum goal
in its own right as well as a means to help students achieve other
learning outcomes

"Self-determination learners are self-advocates"

(Kleinert, Harrison, Fisher, & Kleinert, 2010).
CURRICULUM GOALS
Self-determination

"Teaching students to take responsibility for their learning is an

important component of self-determination."

• Students should be taught to take an active role in their learning at

an early age.
• Teaching students with disabilities to recruit assistance from the
classroom teacher is one strategy for helping them succeed in
general education classrooms and take an active role in their
education
INSTRUCTIONAL
METHODS
Task Analysis
• Means breaking down complex
or multistep skills into smaller,
easier-to-learn subtasks
• From easiest to most difficult
• Important to considerthe extent
to which the natural
environment requires
performance of the target skill
for a certain duration or at a
minimum rate.
INSTRUCTIONAL
METHODS
Active Student Response
• Heward (1994) defined active student response (ASR) as

"An observable response made to an instructional antecedent. ASR occurs when a

student emits a detectable response to ongoing instruction."

• Examples include words read, problems answered, boards cut, test

tubes measured, praise and supportive comments spoken, notes or scales
played, stitches sewn, sentences written, workbook questions answered, and
fastballs pitched.
• The basic measure of how much ASR a student receives is a frequency count of
the number of responses emitted within a given period of instruction.
INSTRUCTIONAL
METHODS
Systematic Feedback
• Instructional feedback information provided to
students about their performance

• Two (2) broad categories:

praise and/o rother forms of confirmation or
positive reinforcement for correct responses
error correction for incorrect responses.
INSTRUCTIONAL
METHODS
Systematic Feedback
"Feedback is most effective when it is specific, immediate,
positive, frequent, and differential"
INSTRUCTIONAL
METHODS
Instructive Feedback
• Can increase the efficiency of instruction for students with
intellectual and other disabilities
• When giving feedback on students’ responses to targeted
items, the teacher intentionally presents “extra
information.”
INSTRUCTIONAL
METHODS
Acquisition Stage of Learning
• should focus on the accuracy and form of the
student’s response

(e.g., “Very good, Kathy. Two quarters equal 50 cents.”)

• Providing feedback after each response in the acquisition

stage reduces the likelihood that students will practice
errors by responding in the absence of feedback
INSTRUCTIONAL
METHODS
Practice Stage of Learning
• When a student begins to perform a new skill with some
consistent accuracy (at minimum correct responses
outnumber errors), she should begin making a series
of responses before the teacher provides feedback.
• Should emphasize the correct rate at which the student
performs the target skill
“Dominique, you correctly answered 28
problems in 1 minute. Way to go!”
INSTRUCTIONAL
METHODS
Transfer of Stimulus Control
• Instead of waiting
• to see whether the student will make a correct response, the
effective teacher provides a prompt (e.g., physical guidance,
verbal directions, pictures, prerecorded auditory prompts)
that makes a correct response very probable

"The correct response is reinforced, the prompt is repeated,

and another correct student response is reinforced."
INSTRUCTIONAL
METHODS
Generalization and Maintenance
• Refer to the extent to which students use what they have
learned across settings and over time

Three (3) of many strategies for promoting generalization and

maintenance are:
Maximize contact with naturally occurring reinforcement
contingencies
Program common stimuli.
Community-based instruction
INSTRUCTIONAL
METHODS
Direct and Frequent Measurement
• Teachers should verify the effects of their instruction by
measuring student performance directly and frequently

Measurement is
direct when it objectively records the learner’s performance
of the behavior of interest in the natural environment for that
skill.
 frequent when it occurs on a regular basis
 should take place as often as instruction occurs.
EDUCATIONAL
PLACEMENT
ALTERNATIVES
Educational Placement Alternatives
 Children with mild intellectual disabilities were traditionally
educated in self-contained classrooms in the public schools, and
students with moderate and severe intellectual disabilities were
routinely placed in special schools.
Today many children with intellectual disabilities are educated in
general education classrooms.
Special and general educators, however, are developing programs
and methods for teaching students with intellectual disabilities
alongside their classmates without disabilities. (e.g. Systematic
planning: team games and collaborative learning)
Educational Placement Alternatives
Students with intellectual disabilities often benefit from similar
programs for students who are not disabled.
During the early elementary grades, students with
intellectual disabilities as well as their chronological- age peers need
instruction in basic academic skills. And most students with ID
benefit from full or partial inclusion in general education classroom
settings.

“School inclusion can then be seen as a means (as opposed to just a goal
unto itself) toward the ultimate objective of community inclusion
and empowerment”
Acceptance and Membership
Nirje (1969) ideal of normalization contained “eight planks”
• a normal rhythm of the day
• a normal routine of life (e.g., living in one place and working in another);
• a normal rhythm of the year (e.g., observing holidays, personal religious
days, and relaxation days)
• a normal developmental experience of the life cycle (e.g., experiencing the
settings and atmospheres enjoyed by typical peers);
• valuing individualchoices (e.g., allowing the dignity and freedom to fail)
• living in a sexual world
• normal economic standards
• living, learning, and recreating in the same community facilities others enjoy
END OF COURSE V