In many states, eligibility for disability services is largely defined by whether or not a person scores 70 or below on an IQ test. But a panel of judges is now questioning the practice.
The state of Massachusetts is being ordered to reevaluate its approach for assessing individuals with disabilities after an appeals court ruled last week that the state’s Department of Developmental Services relied too much on IQ score.
The ruling came in a case involving Paula Tartarini, a 45-year-old woman who was denied services after scoring 71 on an IQ test even though she depends on her mother to make her meals and manage her money.
State officials insisted that they consider “clinical judgement” in addition to IQ, but the court said that the state failed to explain why it relied so heavily on an intelligence score and ordered the agency to reconsider Tartarini’s case, reports The Boston Globe. To read more click here.
When it comes to people with borderline IQ’s like the woman in the article, yes, they should consider more than just IQ for getting services. However, I have a really hard time justifying a person with an IQ of 120 getting services unless they have serious physically handicapping conditions such as cerebral palsy which has left them confined to a wheelchair. With the dollors getting tighter in state budgets, it is hard enough to get services for my 22 year old with Down syndrome and an IQ of 45, but when we have to compete with higher IQ people who need “social training” it is getting tough out there.
In our state, TN, son was denied services based on an IQ test where the examiner wrote on the test results in big capital letters that the test was “invalid due to excessive prompting.” He was 6 years old, it was his first test like that, he had a 77 with her help, and all subsequent tests over the next twenty years were 70 or below. But the state cited that one to deny him services and remove him from the waiting list. I thought it would be easy to fight them on this, it was not. I finally gave up. Even if he were on the waiting list, about 5,999 people ahead of him waiting for services. In our state it is ONLY based on a number, valid or not. I would welcome some common sense brought into the evaluation for services.
Are you a professional in the field of special needs? I take offense to your ignorant view point of “social training” for people with Autsim, for who you are referring, but did not actually say. How do you know anyone’s IQ anyway. We all have to do battle for our children’s needs and most likely we always will. But why do we have to battle with each other? It would be so much better for our children with special needs if we were unified and did not fight with each other, but fight together, for all of the appropriate services for our children’s individual diagnosis.
I realize that it’s tough when administrators deny people services–and it’s not easy fighting to get them, either–but this backbiting isn’t doing us any favors. Less fighting over the existing pie and more fighting to expand the pie, please.
This is nuts! If low IQ is the “golden goose”, it certainly provides incentive not to educate kids with disabilities at all. We were actually told by our school system after two IQ tests performed on our son by a special education teacher showed him to be profoundly intellectually disabled, that this was a good thing, since he would now qualify for more services as an adult. Huh? We believe that he is not as intellectually disabled as they portray him, but rather that it’s a cost-cutting measure for them in the public school, since he will be in Life Skills, rather than needing special education help while being on an academic track.
FWIW, I do know what “social training” is as I also have a 20 year old son with Autism, who does not, by the way, have an IQ of 120. But I do know of others who have such children, and because ASD’s are what I term “disability of the day”, seem to have more pull in getting services as they are funded better, at least where I live. So, I am not “ignorant” as you call me, about “social training”. However, this increased funding for ASD’s is taking away from people with more severe needs because no state is increasing funding.
People with disabilities across the nation need services, and funding is getting cut for everything. Severity of the disability needs to be taken into account in addition to IQ for all services. The federal government has defined intellectual disability as having an IQ below 70. There are other categories of developmental disabilities which are also funded by the federal government and in turn, by state governments. Adaptive scales are used to prove need in activities of daily living to qualify for services, which need to be used in addition to IQ scores. Waiting lists for services are everywhere and staes are closing group homes in favor of community based services. Unfortunately, with so many people on waiting lists, what money is saved by closing group homes and institutions is not adequate for fund the waiting lists.
Carly; I don’t think Barb meant to offend anyone. I can understand any one of us parents of special needs children being sensitive, I am in certain situations too. But I think it would be a benefit to us all if we were to try to stick together. It’s a tough road for all of us. Barb, I do understand your point. The funds should be available to those who really can’t care for themselves.
I think the person’s functional level is more important. What are they able to do on their own. After all, the mark of any disability is how it affects your daily life, not how you score on a test.
I have an adopted daughter who is 15. She has consistently scored 70-72 on IQ tests throughout school. She does NOT receive appropriate services. She is more socially impaired than her friends with ASDs, she is less able to function in the cognitive realm than her sister (who has an IQ of 61). She requires prompting for all ADLs and simple chores. All I ever hear from everyone (and yes, we’ve fought the fight) is, “She doesn’t have autism, she doesn’t have a physical handicap, her IQ is not below 70.” Her working memory is 2nd percentile. New research is showing that working memory is often more important in determining successes in life and academics. She also has no real ability to understand potential consequences of her actions. She has been on various behavioral plans over the years & reports repeatedly state that rewards and consequences are of little importance to her and that plan has been unsuccessful. I decided to homeschool her, put her into private therapies and enroll her in private social skills groups. Other that that – she qualifies for NOTHING. She is sure to outlive us – what then? Will the courts decide that she is a cognitively competent adult & allow her to make her own decisions?
Rhonda, do you know enough about your child’s birth mother to know if she drank during pregnancy? Traditional behavior modification programs based on rewards and consequences have little success with kids who have a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) — or with other neurobehavioral conditions. Only about 10% of kids with FASD have the tell-tale facial features that alert doctors to the condition, and so they go unidentified into adulthood, often have poor outcomes even with normal IQs, and end up in jail, lose jobs easily, get ignorantly blamed for “irresponsibility,” and may have a host of other problems because they need much more support and oversight than anyone would guess. Whether their IQs are 69 or 99, they need lifelong support.
A very slipper slope even when considering “low” IQ scores in the equation of need for services. Many individuals do very well, if not exceptionally well on IQ tests – yet cannot handle life and social skills, executive and administrative functioning to be successful in society without interventions.
So okay, be shortsighted and only help those with the lowest IQ scores and you will see those with high IQ’s who lack appropriate life and social skills become (in greater numbers than already exist) homeless, unemployable and even worse, forensic. Good luck with that society…
Do not confuse IQ intelligence with the ability to self-manage, hold down a job, or make their way into the world. EQ is equally and statistically more important. These are are related yet separate – very separate issues. Also measure the mark of society by the way it cares for the elderly, the infirmed and special populations. This crap is and has always been about money – especially today when budget cuts cut deep.
Just sayin’
I agree with Timothy, I Think functionality would be a better scale, which is obviously impacted by IQ among other factors. My son needs total assistance with all ADLs and his IQ is well under 70, but it is the ADLs and how able a person is to participate in any of those that really dictates for me how much need they have for services, and I know that more than just IQ can impact a person’s ability to do those tasks. The question for me really is: is their behavior, judgement, physical, or intellectual ability keeping them from completing crucial daily activities of living? If so, I’m inclined to think they should qualify for services.
That being said I definitely do think that given our current terrible budget for disability services, we really do have to maintain a pretty strict set of qualifications, to make sure that the services go to those who absolutely need it most.
I have to agree with Timothy, Keri Bowers and annie’s comments. I am fairly highly intelligent, with Aspergers (ASD), and have just got my driver’s license; but I cannot manage my own finances (though strangely, I’m fine with other people’s), have trouble with hygiene and cleanliness in my environment, and I know my parents are quite worried about how I’m going to cope when they die. Admittedly, I’m in a slightly different situation, since I live in Newfoundland, Canada, not in the States, but in a lot of ways, laws are alike in both our countries. I need an OT, but I’ve been refused one; and one of the organizations that refused stated that it was because my IQ was above 70. I still qualify as having a developmental disability by most definitions, because I fail in 4 of the adaptive behaviours (the U.S. federal definition says failing in either 2 or 3 qualifies you as having a developmental disability).
So, yes, I don’t think IQ should be the main qualifier for services – I think it should depend on how well the person is able to cope with independent living, and what sort of supports they need for that.