The American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities' (AAIDD) Terminology and Classification Committee has two primary purposes in publishing this Perspective: (a) to share our thinking about the construct underlying the term intellectual disability (henceforth the intellectual disability construct) and its relation to human functioning and (b) to ask for input from the field because the committee is preparing a proposal for the upcoming Definition, Classification and Systems of Supports manual, to be published in 2009 or 2010. The article has three sections.
In the first section, we make a distinction between an operational definition, which operationalizes the intellectual disability construct and provides the basis for diagnosis and classification, and a constitutive definition, which explains the underlying construct and provides the basis for theory– model development and planning individualized supports. In the second section, we provide an historical overview of how the construct underlying the term mental retardation (henceforth,...