4.4: Prevention of Intellectual Disabilities

Efforts have been made to reduce the prevalence of intellectual disabilities. The AAIDD has identified three levels of intervention. Primary prevention uses strategies such as vaccinations to prevent childhood diseases that cause intellectual disabilities. Another example of primary prevention is providing counseling and addiction treatment services for mothers who use drugs, alcohol, or tobacco.

Secondary prevention uses strategies that prevent the development of symptoms of disability in individuals with an existing disease or condition. For example, testing newborns for phenylketonuria (PKU), an inherited disorder that can damage the brain and nervous system, and providing appropriate medical treatment can help prevent damage to the brain and nervous system.

Tertiary prevention includes strategies to reduce the outcome of a disability on a child’s everyday functioning. For example, this might include providing early intervention services to a child diagnosed with an FASD (Smiley et al., 2022).

Activity \(\PageIndex{1}\): The Abecedarian Project

Directions: The Abecedarian Project was one of the first research projects to demonstrate the positive impact that early intervention services can have on a child’s development. Explore The Abecedarian Project website. Who participated in The Abecedarian Project? What early interventions did they test? What were their findings?

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Smiley, L. R., Richards, S.B., & Taylor, R. (2022). Exceptional students: Preparing teachers for the 21^st century (4th ed.). McGraw Hill.