Rationale
This revision of the Guidelines for Identifying Children with Intellectual Disability/Mental Retardation (2000) is intended to clarify and improve special education identification, as well as placement policies and practices for professionals serving children with intellectual disability (ID) or children suspected of having an intellectual disability in Connecticut schools. The term intellectual disability continues in this revision rather than the parallel term, mental retardation. The purpose of the original guidelines remains and is to:
- promote appropriate assessments of children suspected of having an intellectual disability;
- promote consistency across the state in the process of determining eligibility;
- foster and enhance the awareness of intellectual disability as a heterogeneous condition;
- incorporate recent developments in the professional literature and field; and
- promote "intellectual disability" as the nationally accepted nomenclature for thinking about and providing service to students with mental retardation.
In addition, the 2006 revision seeks to improve outcomes for students with intellectual disability by:
- objectively defining the intellectual disability classification and improving placement procedures and practices of children who are economically disadvantaged and of children by race/ethnicity;
- ensuring that children classified with intellectual disability receive nonbiased assessment and evaluation procedures that yield useful information for educational programming; and
- preventing inappropriate intellectual disability classification and placement decisions by race/ethnicity while, simultaneously, ensuring that children with intellectual disability are appropriately identified and provided with the necessary supports and services in the least restrictive environment.
Download the full Executive Summary Document
