PSYC 412 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Euphemism, Developmental Disability, Intellectual Disability
PSYC 412: Developmental Psychopathology
April 9th 2018
Lecture 23: Intellectual Disability (Intellectual Development Disorder)
• There is no class Wednesday, no lecture on infant mental health
• Final lecture Monday
• Terminology
o In DSM-IV the diagnosis used to be mental retardation
o Challenge with the language around intellectual disability is that historically,
whatever term has been used to define this has eventually over time shifted to
become offensive
▪ eupheis teadill: terms that are intended to be neutral slowly will
acquire negative meanings
o Idiot, imbecile and moron were once neutral medical terms used to describe
individuals who were experiencing developmental delays
▪ All those terms shifted to represent derogatory meanings
o Terms played out in favor of mental retardation in DSM-IV
o The te etal etadatio is o also see as offesie
o Advocates prefer:
▪ Intellectual disability or developmental disability
▪ DSM-V uses itelletual disailit o itelletual deelopet disode
• What is intelligence?
o ID characterized by difficulties in intellectual processing
o Intelligence: a multi-faceted construct composed of many different sub-
processes
▪ Verbal abilities
▪ Spatial skills
▪ Reasoning skills: ability to work through problems
▪ Working memory: how much you can manipulate/hold in your head at a
time
▪ Ability to control your attention
o Intelligence is comprised of many different sub-processes
o IQ is typically fairly stable past infancy
▪ Childes IQ at age 6 e stogl assoiated ith thei IQ he thee
10, 12, or 15 but it can change
▪ Did the IQ test accurately reflect the pesos IQ?
• Was it a good measure?
• If not, we might get a different measure on a different test
• Kids with ADHD might have a lot of difficulty taking an IQ test,
may not do well and conditions of test might not have been
optimal to measure their IQ
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• Intervention: important to keep in mind that there are
iteetios that a oe peoples IQ soes, patiulal eal
i kids lies, leadig to oost i intellectual functioning
• Core features of intellectual disability: DSM V
o Deficits in intellectual functioning
▪ An IQ less than 70
o Deficits in adaptive functioning
▪ Difficulty functioning, doing things that must be done in daily life
o Onset for ID is during developmental period
▪ Before the age of 18
▪ If there had never been symptoms or challenges through developmental
period but a marked decrease of intellectual functioning in adulthood we
would not diagnose ID
• Subtypes of degrees of impairment
o How severe is it in terms of how much impairment the person is experiencing:
how challenging are they finding conceptual, social, and practical things?
▪ Conceptual: academic, intellectual skills
• ‘eessie ad epessie laguage, eadig, itig…
▪ Social skills
• Iteatios ith othes, udestadig he soeoes tikig
ou, oeig the la…
▪ Practical skills
• Eating, dressing, using toilet, make meals, take medication, etc.
o Mild:
▪ Applies to about 85% of people with ID
▪ Tpiall e dot idetif people epeiencing mild ID until elementary
school years, before then the intellectual work is not challenging enough
to be able to see where the challenges are
▪ Overrepresentation of individuals who are in a minority group or in lower
SES family
o Moderate
▪ 10% of people with ID
▪ Impairment is more severe, we tend to pick it up earlier, usually
identified during preschool years
▪ Individuals who have moderate impairment have much more
pronounced conceptual challenges
▪ Adults with moderate severity when adults have intellectual functioning
like an elementary school child
o Severe
▪ 3-4% of people with ID
▪ Often associated with a clear, organic cause (e.g. head injury, genetic
event)
▪ Tend to pick it up even younger
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
▪ Usually identified at a very young age
o Profound
▪ 1-2% of people with ID
▪ Usually identified in infancy
▪ Clear, organic cause almost always, often co-occurs with severe medical
conditions
▪ Dependent on others for all aspects of their care
▪ Take pleasure in social relationships with close others, can still experience
pleasure interacting with people close to them
• Assessment
o Need to assess IQ and adaptive functioning
o IQ tests
▪ A series of tests designed to assess different types of intelligence
▪ Standard IQ test for children is the Wexler Intelligence Scale for Children
(WISC)
• Children 6-17 years old
▪ Preschool version for younger kids too
▪ WISC-IV
• Full scale IQ comprised of verbal IQ and performance IQ
(processing speed, perceptual organization index)
• Matrix reasoning
• Block design
• Picture similarities
▪ WISC is standardized
• The procedures for administering the tasks are highly specified
▪ WISC norms have been established
• Through lots of administration with lots of kids
• Performance can be compared to other children of the same age
and gender
• Average performance on WISC is 100: normal IQ
• Standard deviation is 15
o WISC distribution of scores:
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
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