u.s. president barack obama signed s. 2781 into law on october 5, 2010. known as rosa's law, it is a bill that changed references in federal law; the term mental retardation was replaced by mental disability. additionally, the phrase "mentally retarded individual" was replaced with "an individual with an intellectual disability". rosa's law was named after rosa marcellino, a nine-year-old girl with down syndrome. she worked with her parents to have the words "mentally retarded" officially removed from health and education code in maryland, her home state. with this new law, "mental retardation" and "mentally retarded" no longer exist in federal health or education and labor policy. the rights of individuals with disabilities would remain the same. the goal of this word removal was to remove language that may be considered hurtful from communities.