Children with Intellectual Disability

The focus of this chapter is intellectual disabilities, specifically those that impact a child’s ability to communicate. Areas of communication challenge for this population including understanding and producing verbal or even gestural messages, depending on the significance of the child’s communication disorder, are discussed. With the adaptive functioning challenges children with intellectual disabilities experience, this chapter includes a discussion of a child’s understanding of daily events and the personal and social skills needed to adapt to those events. The level of communication difficulty is also emphasized as a child’s ability to understand what might be expected in a typical routine or how to initiate interactions and engage socially in an age appropriate manner will be compromised.