You overhear two teenagers talking about a girl in their Spanish class. They mention that she has dyslexia and then proceed to refer to her as mentally retarded

Question

You stop these two teenagers to explain to them the differences between intellectual disability and learning disability. What would you tell these two teenagers? In addition, what would you say to them about their use of the term mentally retarded?
What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

A good answer will be similar to the following:
These teenagers first need to be told that term mental retardation is no longer used. We now refer to it as intellectual disability so that it better reflects the condition not as a deficit in the person but as a poor fit between the person's capacities and the context in which the person functions. Second, you would tell these teenagers that intellectual disability is not the same thing as a learning disability. Dyslexia is a learning disability. Individuals with learning disabilities have difficulty mastering an academic subject but have normal intelligence and are not suffering from other conditions that could explain poor performance (such as sensory impairment or inadequate instructions). Intellectual disability, on the other hand, refers to substantial limitations in intellectual ability as well as problems in adapting to an environment, with both emerging before 18 years of age.