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The education of students with intellectual disability, like all students, is influenced by assessments. For students with intellectual disability, assessment is used to evaluate individuals as having an intellectual disability (e.g., intellectual functioning assessments and adaptive behavior assessments), as well as to guide instruction and making decisions about what to teach. Throughout this chapter, the authors present assessments related to the determination of individuals having intellectual disability as well as ones that inform, guide, or evaluate instruction for students. In addition to presenting traditional assessment options for students with intellectual disability, the chapter also presents some innovative options for determining what to teach students with intellectual disability.

This chapter traces the history of intellectual disabilities by exploring significant historical periods and personalities who impacted the disability field and specifically the area of intellectual disability. Like other documented histories, the purpose of this chapter is to instruct and inform readers about the historical underpinnings of the labels, practices, and programs related to intellectual disability that are in effect today. While this chapter is not intended to be prescriptive in how the information presented here is to be interpreted, we are acutely aware that historical accounts are often interpreted based upon contemporary ideologies, knowledge, and practices. As such, as a historical account, this chapter is no exception. Current belief and practices about intellectual disabilities indeed influence the choices that, we as the chapter authors, made about the relative importance of the events that we select to highlight in this chapter. Nonetheless, this account reflects the events and personalities who, in our estimation, transformed and/or advanced the field of intellectual disability. We open with a brief prologue of the representations of the intellectual disability in popular culture and its potential impact on perceptions of persons with intellectual disability.

This article describes the use of the National Health Interview Survey-Disability Supplement (NHIS-D) to estimate the prevalence and general characteristics of persons with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities in the non-institutionalized U.S. population. It provides estimates of the populations of non-institutionalized persons with intellectual disability (defined categorically), with developmental disabilities (defined functionally) and with both. It describes how the prevalence of intellectual and/or developmental disabilities varies by age, poverty status and other demographic variables. It describes how intellectual disabilities and developmental disabilities are operationally different, and how the people identified in those groups differ substantially both in number and in demographic characteristics. An analysis of poverty status among adults reveals that poverty is significantly more common for women, people who were not white, people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, adults with less than 12 years of education, and people living with a spouse or alone (as compared to people living with relatives such as parents or siblings).

Students with an intellectual disability historically faced exclusion in both schools and in their communities. Through court cases, legislation, and parental advocacy, students with an intellectual disability were awarded the right to an education, and under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, an education in the least restrictive environment. This chapter explores the historical and current state of inclusion for students with an intellectual disability as well as the current and historical research base regarding inclusive educational placements for students with an intellectual disability. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the future of inclusive education for students with an intellectual disability.

Historically, the condition we now refer to as intellectual disability has been conceptualized using models that were extension of the medical model. Recent advances, however, have emphasized person-environment fit models of disability that view disability, intellectual, and other cognitive disabilities, as the lack of fit between a person’s capacities and the demands of the context. This chapter examines these shifts in conceptualization and the ways in which this changes how interventions are designed to provide support to enable people with intellectual disability to live, learn, work, and play in their communities. Such interventions and supports include issues pertaining to Universal Design for Learning, multi-tiered systems of supports, and the primacy of promoting the self-determination of people with disabilities. The importance of efforts to promote social inclusion is also discussed, as well as strategies to promote transition to adulthood. Authors from several countries provide examples of how these new intervention paradigms are being implemented across the world.

Over the last decade, there has been a significant increase of students with intellectual disabilities attending mainstream primary and secondary-level education in the Republic of Ireland (McConkey et al., 2017). Despite this increase, it appears that comparatively few of these students successfully transition to further/higher education and/or employment opportunities. This chapter examines typical transition support/guidance provided to students with intellectual disabilities as they prepare to complete their post-primary education in a mainstream setting. Using data from a study of school principals and school personnel responsible for career guidance and transition planning, the findings show guidance is limited for students with intellectual disabilities. Instead of being the responsibility of career guidance counsellors, guidance and transitions planning for students with intellectual disabilities are viewed as being the role of other personnel such as the school SENCO. By assigning this responsibility to special education roles in the school, students with intellectual disabilities may run the risk of having narrow and limited career options presented to them. This study raises serious questions about the effectiveness of mainstream schools in facilitating this critical transition stage for students who have intellectual disabilities.

The term intellectual disability is broad and encompassing. Regardless of the severity of a child’s intellectual disability, early education is important. This chapter discusses educational considerations of young learners with intellectual disability. Specially, the chapter focuses on academics, life skills, social skills and social development, and behavior. Instructional content and instructional strategies are shared for these areas considering young children, although particular attention in paid to preschool and early elementary age students.

This chapter reviews the intervention research literature – particularly interventions deemed evidence-based – for students with intellectual disability across academic and life-skills instruction. Although the focus of this chapter is the spectrum of students covered under the term “intellectual disability,” the majority of research on evidence-based interventions for students with intellectual disability focus on students with more moderate and severe intellectual disability, rather than students with mild intellectual disability. The majority of the interventions determined to be evidence-based within the literature for students with intellectual disability – across both academic and life skills – tend to be those that fall within the purview of systematic instruction.

This chapter sought to answer the following questions: (a) what does special education means for students with intellectual disability?, (b) what is being done, and (c) how do we maintain tradition? The answers, while complicated, suggest special education for students with intellectual disability historically and currently involves attention to what, how, and where, with the how being the key elements of special education for students with intellectual disability. This chapter discussed the what, how, and where for students with intellectual disability in a historical and current framework while also providing evidence-based practices for students with intellectual disability to implement to maintain the tradition of high-quality services.