In most countries, this was essentially complete by the late 1990s, although the debate over whether or not to close institutions persists in some states, including Massachusetts.In the past, lead poisoning and infectious diseases were significant causes of intellectual disability. Some causes of intellectual disability are decreasing, as medical advances, such as vaccination, increase. Other causes are increasing as a proportion of cases, perhaps due to rising maternal age, which is associated with several syndromic forms of intellectual disability.Along with the changes in terminology, and the downward drift in acceptability of the old terms, institutions of all kinds have had to repeatedly change their names. This affects the names of schools, hospitals, societies, government departments, and academic journals. For example, the Midlands Institute of Mental Sub-normality became the British Institute of Mental Handicap and is now the British Institute of Learning Disability. This phenomenon is shared with mental health and motor disabilities, and seen to a lesser degree in sensory disabilities. Terminology
Over the past two decades, the term intellectual disability has become preferred by most advocates and researchers in most English-speaking countries. In a 2012 survey of 101 Canadian healthcare professionals, 78% said they would use the term developmental delay with parents over intellectual disability (8%).
This early intervention should include encouragement of exploration, mentoring in basic skills, celebration of developmental advances, guided rehearsal and extension of newly acquired skills, protection from harmful displays of disapproval, teasing, or punishment, and exposure to a rich and responsive language environment. A great example of a successful intervention is the Carolina Abecedarian Project that was conducted with over 100 children from low socioeconomic status families beginning in infancy through pre-school years. Results indicated that by age 2, the children provided the intervention had higher test scores than control group children, and they remained approximately 5 points higher 10 years after the end of the program. By young adulthood, children from the intervention group had better educational attainment, employment opportunities, and fewer behavioral problems than their control-group counterparts.Core components of behavioral treatments include language and social skills acquisition. Typically, one-to-one training is offered in which a therapist uses a shaping procedure in combination with positive reinforcements to help the child pronounce syllables until words are completed. Sometimes involving pictures and visual aids, therapists aim at improving speech capacity so that short sentences about important daily tasks (e.g. bathroom use, eating, etc.) can be effectively communicated by the child. In a similar fashion, older children benefit from this type of training as they learn to sharpen their social skills such as sharing, taking turns, following instruction, and smiling. At the same time, a movement known as social inclusion attempts to increase valuable interactions between children with an intellectual disability and their non-disabled peers.