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Intellectual Disability · 3 min read
What is Intellectual Disability (ID)?
The levels of intellectual disability and the three areas of everyday functioning it can affect.
A child with an intellectual disability has below-average mental abilities (an IQ of around 70 or below), which makes it harder to complete tasks at the same pace as other children their age. Two areas are affected:
- Intellectual functioning, such as learning, problem solving and reasoning
- Adaptive functioning, the activities of daily life such as communication and independent living
Levels of intellectual disability
- Mild: with the right help, most people can learn reading, writing and maths skills to the best of their ability.
- Moderate: can learn the basics of reading and writing, along with practical safety and self-help skills. Needs ongoing support.
- Severe: finds reading and writing challenging, but can learn self-help routines and habits. Needs supervision for daily activities.
- Profound: needs a high level of support and has communication difficulties.
The three areas of adaptive functioning
- Conceptual: language, reasoning, reading, writing, knowledge, memory and maths.
- Social: making and keeping friends, relationships with others, and empathy.
- Practical: personal care, work responsibilities, money, organising tasks and recreation.
