ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how 'intellectual disability' is constituted as an object of knowledge for government purposes, that is, how questions concerning what this condition is are answered by medical, para-medical, and psychological science and how the answers provided are integral to the government of the group. Despite the heterogeneity of sub-diagnoses and differences as concerns functioning and service needs contained within the category of 'intellectual disability', it is important to note that the condition is seen as a specific way to be in the world. In parallel to the emergence of the conception of 'intelligence', the first decades of the 20th century saw the linking together of numerous societal problems and people perceived as having deficient intelligence. Today, along with psychometric testing, a diagnosis of 'intellectual disability' also requires the presence of behavioural problems. The symptoms of intellectual disability are not indicative of anything else but themselves, which means that they effectively become the condition as such.
