From Deficit Description to Support Needs: Functioning and Education of Students with Mild Intellectual Disability

The central educational question concerning students with mild intellectual disability is often framed too narrowly. Once a diagnostic category is assigned, descriptions of presumed cognitive and behavioural limitations can begin to substitute for an assessment of a particular learner. This conceptual paper substantially reconstructs an academic manuscript written in 2012 and examines a different approach: moving from a deficit catalogue to an analysis of functioning, learning opportunities and support needs. The reconstruction draws exclusively on literature available by the end of 2011, including the AAIDD definition and supports framework, the World Health Organization's classification of functioning, research on learning potential, cognitive-strategy instruction and self-determination. The paper develops an educational account in which intellectual functioning, adaptive behaviour, the environment and response to instruction are considered together. A six-stage planning framework is elaborated and illustrated through a hypothetical classroom example. The framework is a practical synthesis rather than a validated intervention protocol. The argument is not that disability-related difficulties should be denied, but that diagnostic information becomes educationally useful only when translated into individualised, testable decisions about teaching, participation and support. Keywords mild intellectual disability; adaptive behaviour; support needs; inclusive education; self-determination; learning potential; instructional scaffolding; cognitive strategy instructionDawid Karol Kolodziej website: https://dkk.hqici.com ICI: https://hqici.com