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4.6: Identifying Students with Intellectual Disabilities

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    As identified earlier in this chapter, children may be diagnosed with an intellectual disability resulting from genetic or other environmental causes before they reach school age. However, once students enter school, response to intervention is used to identify students for special education and related services. Educators and clinicians may use intelligence tests, adaptive behavior skills assessments, or other academic skills assessments to identify students.

    Example intelligence tests include the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. An example of adaptive behavior skills assessment is the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. In addition, the AAIDD advocates for the use of the Supports Intensity Scale, which allows professionals to measure the support needs of students with intellectual disabilities across categories of adaptive behavior. Academic skills assessments may include standardized and curriculum-based assessments and examples of students’ coursework.

    The AAIDD also suggests that needed support should be assessed using self-reports from the students and their parents or guardians. Direct observation of a student’s behavior may also help determine their level of functioning compared with that of their peers and in different environments (e.g., home, school, community). Finally, determining the needs of the student means considering the goals of the student and their parents or guardians (Smiley et al., 2022). Person-centered planning (PCP) has become an important process enabling the person with a disability, and people significant to them, to be fully involved in developing plans for the future (National Parent Center on Transition and Employment, 2022).

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

    National Parent Center on Transition and Employment. (2022, October 19). Person-centered planning. https://www.pacer.org/transition/learning-center/independent-community-living/person-centered.asp

    This page titled 4.6: Identifying Students with Intellectual Disabilities is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Diana Zaleski (Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI)) .