Intellectual Disability (Mental Retardation)

It is a tendency by students to demonstrate sub-average intellectual functioning that coincides with deficits in adaptive behavior and is undisguised during the developmental period. The disability tends to affect a student’s educational performance. Mentally retarded students tend to be slow in various aspects compared to their peers. They lag behind in social and emotional development, academic achievement, physical development and language ability among others.

Specific Learning Disability

This disability is exhibited by students that do not achieve adequately based on the state-approved grade level standards or the child’s age. This is prevalent even when they have been provided with instruction and learning experiences that are appropriate for their age in the areas of listening comprehension, oral expression, basic reading skills, written expression, reading comprehension and mathematics calculations.

Review specific tests sections in your textbook and choose three formal assessments appropriate to be used to test for each disability category. 

Tests for Intellectual Disability

1. IQ test
2. Wechsler intelligence scale for children
3. Woodcock-Johnson tests of cognitive abilities and Tests of Achievement

Tests for Specific Learning Disability

1. Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test
2. Wechsler Individual Achievement Test
3. Test of Word Reading Efficiency

Explain how the result of each test is used to establish eligibility under each category. 

IQ Test

Intelligence quotient is an assessment of an individual’s ability to reason and think. For an individual to qualify for intellectual disability, they must have an IQ that is two standard deviations or one that is below the mean; which is normally 70 or less.

Wechsler intelligence scale for children

An individual is eligible for intellectual disability if the verbal comprehension subsets, perceptual reasoning subset, working memory and processing speed subsets score below the IQ of 70.

Woodcock-Johnson tests of cognitive abilities and Tests of Achievement

It has 20 subsets that are used to test cognitive abilities. For an individual to qualify for intellectual disability, the interpretive scores in these subsets should be below the required threshold.

Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test

An individual is eligible for specific learning disability if they cannot identify a substantial amount of pictures presented to them while compared to other individuals within their age norm or grade norm.

Wechsler Individual Achievement Test

Eligibility to specific learning disability is dependent on an individual’s failure to score reasonably in areas involving reading, writing, math and oral language. This is in comparison to the state-approved grade level and the individual’s age.

Test of Word Reading Efficiency

An individual is eligible for specific learning disability if they fail to pronounce phonetically regular non-words and printed words fluently and accurately based on their age. This will depend on what they are expected to have grasped at that age.

Give one example each (one for SLD and one for MR/ID) showing how an error in testing process may lead to misinterpretation of the assessment and consequent mislabeling

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