Editorial Policy

The American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (Print ISSN: 1944–7515; Online ISSN: 1944–7558) is published by the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. It is a scientific, scholarly, and archival multidisciplinary journal for reporting original contributions of the highest quality to knowledge of intellectual disabilities, its causes, treatment, and prevention. Such contributions include (a) reports of empirical research on characteristics of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, individual differences in and correlates of such characteristics, and factors that alter those characteristics or correlates; (b) systematic reviews and tightly conceived theoretical interpretations of relevant research literatures; and (c) reports of evaluative research on new treatment procedures or programs. In general, the preferred approach is scientific, evidence-based, and theory-guided. Annotated bibliographies, anecdotal case reports, descriptions of treatment procedures or programs, personal accounts, and descriptive reports on new tests and their standardization are not published.

Each submitted paper is reviewed by experts in the area of the paper’s content. To be published, a paper must conform to the highest standards of professional development of the disciplines identified with its content. Research papers are judged on the importance of the questions asked, soundness of conceptualization and rationale, relevance of research operations to the questions, reliability of results, logic of conclusions, and clarity and economy of presentations. Reports of studies using educational and psychological tests designed for practical use are accepted only if the tests meet the criteria described in the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (American Psychological Association, 1985). Literature reviews, theoretical reinterpretations, and scholarly reassessments are judged on relevance of focus, incisiveness with which issues are defined, completeness of coverage of relevant literature, consistency in the application of evaluative criteria, soundness of inferences and conclusions, and novelty and probable fruitfulness of interpretation. Such papers must include new insights in order to be acceptable for publication.