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Navigate Life Texas: Resources for kids with disabilities and special needs
Navigate Life Texas: Resources for kids with disabilities and special needs
If you’re on this page, we know you are interested in intellectual disabilities. Maybe you have a child, a friend, a family member, or another loved one with an intellectual disability. This page is here to help you learn a little bit about intellectual disabilities, and then find other areas of our site where you can learn more facts, tools, and ways to get support.
Having an intellectual disability affects a child’s ability to learn, think, solve problems, and make sense of the world because their IQ (or intellectual functioning) score is 75 or lower. An intellectual disability also affects your child’s ability to build the skills they would need to live independently (called adaptive skills). These include language, self-control, social skills, attention, and practical skills like how to handle money and time or the way they take care of themselves. The legal definition of an intellectual disability says that a child will have a lower IQ and have fewer adaptive skills than their peers with typical development; this disability will begin at age 17 or younger, and they are unlikely to outgrow it. Find out more at The Arc’s web page on intellectual disability.
An intellectual disability isn’t something that other people see right away. There might be times when other people expect a child with an intellectual disability to learn or do things that a child with typical development would do, even when they haven’t built that skill yet. That can be frustrating for the child – and for their parent.
While not every child with the diagnoses listed below will have an intellectual disability, here are a few diagnoses that may come along with an intellectual disability:
You can find about more intellectual disabilities on our Diagnosis A – Z list.