Intellectual Disability Stereotypes

Individuals with disabilities have a long, hard history. In early times children born with disabilities were seen as weak and helpless, often resulting in them being hidden away or even killed. Due to not having the knowledge on the level of which we have today about disabilities in the past, people did not know what caused it. Sometimes giving birth to a child with a disability would be blamed on sins of family members, often leading to feelings of shame and guilt by the parents and/or other family members. The view on people with disabilities progressed positively into the 1900’s, but society was still not informed on how to treat those with disabilities. Instead of treating them like people, feelings of pity were commonly evoked in others. The arrival of disabled veterans after World War II and the civil rights fights of women and racial minorities had an immense impact on the changing perspectives on disability in the United States. With this changing perspective came the view of how inaccessible environments and the attitudes of others affected the disabled, bringing forth that access to programs and services was a civil right. This led to legislation which included the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (later updated and renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA), and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). These and other laws entitle people

In the US around 4.6 million people are identified as having an intellectual disability and 25 to 33 % children are born with mental disabilities. Resch J, Benz M, Elliott T. (2012). Intellectual disability is a disability characterized by significant limitations in both intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior, which covers many everyday social and practical skills. This disability originates before the age of 18. In order to determine if a child has intellectual disabilities the child will take a series of test such as an IQ test if the child score below a 70 he/she would be categorize a limitation in intellectual functioning. Beside the IQ test Conceptual skills, social skills, practical skills. Some common types of intellectual

As a result of the marginalization, persons with disability, older people, and people with mental health issues often lack power within their families and communities, and autonomy in their own lives – and this feeds into the cycle of marginalization. Society often does not take into account the ways in which impairment is part of humanity. Instead, it views the effects of impairment as obstacles. This emanates from the interaction between persons

Disability, defined in the dictionary, is a condition caused by an accident, trauma, genetics or disease which may limit a person's mobility, hearing, vision, speech or mental function. There are many different ways disabilities can manifest themselves. One may be born with a disability such as Downs Syndrome or autism or you can acquire the title throughout life such as being involved in an accident which may confine you to a wheelchair. These examples show the wide range of people branded with the label of “disable” mentally or physically, sometimes even both. Unfortunately, through no fault of their own, these people are labeled as deviants in todays society. We can argue that this is an Issue of a stigmatizing label being imposed on a group of people. In response to being stigmatized, the disabled and their sympathizers, have formed social movements to come together and fight the insensitive and unnecessary

I learned many things while reading this article. A couple of the many things I learned in this article include the idea that there is not “a universally-accepted definition for disability” and that “[o]ld, inaccurate descriptors and the inappropriate use of medical diagnoses perpetuate negative stereotypes and reinforce a significant and incredibly powerful attitudinal barrier.”

As Americans, we have the commonality of segregating those abnormal to the general public. This includes those of another race, lower income, and/or has a disability. Mentally disabled children of America have endured the isolation of other “average” Americans. With no understanding of being considered different, they were lowered in dignity and repelled by fellow citizens. In earlier year, mentally handicapped children were despised and ridiculed for being disabled; now with greater understanding, they are slowly being accepted as normal Americans. Small steps like new treatments, education, and creating more tolerant environments have helped mentally disabled children feel more included as a society.

The lack of physical symptoms of intellectual disability makes the identification of individuals living with intellectual disabilities an extremely challenging task. Since the advent of the human intelligence measuring scale (Parmenter, 2011), mental health professionals have been using individualized, standardized intelligence testing: Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test (Koriakin et al., 2013; Parmenter, 2011). Despite remarkable contributions to psychology and education fields in particular (Ellis, 2013; Floyd, Reynolds, Farmer, Kranzler, & Volpe, 2013; Neubauer & Opriessnig, 2014), the use of IQ tests has been sharply criticized for their lack of objectivity (Garcia, 2015; Gottfredson & Saklofske, 2009). Seemingly in response to critics, proponents of IQ testings recommend adaptive behavior be assessed along cognitive limitations to enhance the objectivity and credibility of the evaluation outcomes (Parmenter,

These changes in definitions and wording related to Intellectual Disabilities tells us that our culture today has advanced greatly in terms of dealing with the Intellectual Disabilities. This is because it has become concerned with human dignity and caring towards individuals with Intellectual Disabilities. Our culture today seems to be more understanding about Intellectual Disabilities then it did in the past. This is because society is trying to be more inclusive with the intellectually disabled. Definition and wording changes shows that society and culture has changed its attitudes towards intellectually disabled individuals (Richards, Brady & Taylor, 2015). Today’s culture seems to be more sensitive about the terminology and labels used

People with disabilities are recognized as one of the largest minority groups within in our nation. Evidently, this is why our society needs to recognize people of disability and in the ways in which we can justly view them. As a community, we need to spread awareness about the growing number of people with disabilities. According to “Disabilities Studies: A New Normal,” the vast number of people with disabilities are growing in significant numbers; this is an imperative reason why our nation needs to be more educated about this minority group (Simon 1).

Shakespeare,T.,Watson,N.(2002). The social model of disability: an outdated ideology? Research in Social Science and Disability (2), 9-28.

I was never an advocate for this topic until two years ago. I was just like anyone else who has never been around people with a disability, unsure, scared, and kind of just avoided confrontation with them in general but during my sophomore year I joined Best Buddies, an international non profit organization whose mission is to eliminate the isolation of people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD). I have been apart of this club for three years and have served as the President of the club for the past two years. It wasn’t till the first year being president that I had my life changing realization at the Best Buddies Leadership Conference.They’re just like you and me. Since they don’t react or

Disability people learned to deal with problem that we normally can do.In school their a person that come up too you and say something stereotypical about you but in a few days it’s gone. For disabled people it happens a lot and with a lot of people.This is shown at www.cdc.gov when it said,”People often stereotype those with disabilities, assuming their quality of life is poor or that they are unhealthy because of their impairments.”This shows that they can have to learn not to let things get under their skin and bother than all day.

The label Mental Retardation have been used to discriminate, limit and hurt children with Intellectual Disabilities since the beginning of formal education. Children with special needs have not been treated well in history. They have been victimized, institutionalized, hidden away in attics, and refused to be allow to attend school. Unfortunately, the negative connotation of being Mentally Retarded was a central part of the justification of treating these children as less than. Even today the label of mental retarded leads to bullying, low expectations, and an unfair bias towards children with Intellectual Disabilities.

Intellectual disability, less commonly referred to as mental retardation, is defined as “significantly sub-average intellectual functioning” (Heward, 2012). In order for an individual to be diagnosed with an intellectual

People with developmental disabilities (DD), particularly Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities (I/DD), represent a diverse group with a varied range of highly complex needs. Including both the young and the old, I/DD is described with inconsistent and arguable terms and categories; some with diverse viewpoints which can be stigmatizing. I/DD affects approximately 2.5 percent of the population in the United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) (Baldor, 2017), however due to the different characterizations in different countries and the many ill-defined and changeable social labels in many cultures, it is very possible that I/DD could potentially encompass larger segments of the population than recorded. For example,