ABSTRACT
Intellectual disability has a rich history of alternative terms in response to changes in public attitudes towards people who suffer with impaired intelligence. The World Health Organization (WHO) has used the concepts of impairment, disability and handicap to denote the loss/abnormality of a physiological/ anatomical/psychological function that leads to loss of an ability normal in human beings and ultimately to the social disadvantage associated with that loss (Re C (1994) 1 All ER 819). In current practice, intellectual disability is defined as an event that has occurred during the developmental period and that has led to incomplete or arrested development of the mind that is especially characterized by impairments in adaptive skills and an IQ of less than 70 (American Association on Mental Retardation 1992, American Psychiatric Association 1995, World Health Organization 1992).
