8 Intellectual Disability and the Death Penalty
Almost all of the Atkins claims will be dealing with individuals who have
intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior levels that are at or near
(within 1 standard deviation of the approximate cutoff score) 2 standard
deviations below the population mean. These people either have intellec-
tual disability with mild deficits of intellectual functioning and/or adap-
tive behavior or are in what was formerly called the “borderline intellectual
functioning” range. Very few of these Atkins claims will be people who are
in the profound, severe, or even moderate range of deficits in intellectual
and adaptive behavior. These cases in the mild range of intellectual and
adaptive functioning represent the most difficult cases to rule in or rule
out intellectual disability, making it even more important to keep one’s mis-
conceptions and erroneous assumptions in check because these men and
women look like anyone else and will most likely present a wide range of
relative strengths and abilities. As listed in Schalock and colleagues (2012;
see p. 26), the following all-encompassing stereotypes have no scientific
basis or grounding in reality:
• People with ID look and talk differently than people without ID.
• People with ID are completely incompetent and dangerous.
• People with ID cannot accomplish complex tasks.
• People with ID cannot get a driver’s license, buy a car, or drive a car.
• People with ID do not (and cannot) support their families.
• People with ID cannot romantically love or be romantically loved.
• People with ID cannot acquire work and social skills needed to live
in de pendently.
• People with ID are characterized only by limitations and don’t have strengths
that coexist with their limitations.
A rigorous assessment of intellectual functioning, adaptive behavior,
and determination of age of onset supporting a diagnosis of intellectual
disability cannot be set aside because the person diagnosed with intel-
lectual disability has one or more discrete abilities that confound your
conception of what people with intellectual disability can or should be
able to do.
Stigma
The condition known as “intellectual disability” has long-held signifi-
cant stigma in our societies. So much so that the name of the condition
itself has had to be changed over the years because of the acquired stigma
