Intellectual disability refers to a reduced level of intellectual ability in an individual, which is often inherited and may lead to impaired development of brain cells. Some define it as incomplete development of the nervous system.

The Medical Definition of Intellectual Disability

It is well known that physicians were the first group of specialists to deal with cases of intellectual disability. Physicians have defined it as a condition involving intellectual deficiency resulting from malnutrition or from an illness caused by injury to the central nervous system.

The Social Definition of Intellectual Disability

A number of specialists must participate in diagnosing cases of intellectual disability in order to determine the nature of the disability. Diagnosis should not depend on a single aspect, but rather on several different aspects. This leads to another definition that focuses on social aspects, particularly the process of social adaptation within the environment in which the individual lives.

Classifications of Intellectual Disability

• Classification based on intelligence quotient (IQ).
• Classification based on adaptive behavior.
• Educational classification (special education).
• Clinical classification.

Characteristics of Artistic Expression Among People with Intellectual Disabilities

The drawings of children with intellectual disabilities do not correspond to the stages of artistic development or to the characteristics of artistic expression of children their age, because they are isolated from many of the examples associated with the graphic and drawing activities of typically developing children. Their drawings arise from the pleasure the child derives from arm movements and from the visible marks left by these movements on paper. Thus, they express an innate bodily rhythm.

Main Characteristics of Artistic Expression Among People with Intellectual Disabilities

• An inability to perceive the relationships between the elements depicted or between the parts of a single element.
• Copying from the drawings of others.
• Repetition and mechanical drawing, with a tendency to repeat the same part several times.
• There are indications of scattered thoughts during drawing, a lack of concentration, and a rapid shift from one idea to another without completing it.
• When the drawings of people with intellectual disabilities are examined without careful scrutiny or comparison, they may appear completely finished. However, when examined closely, we may find that the child has limited himself or herself to a series of rough sketches that the child adopted without sufficient attention or development.
• Distorting the work after completing it.

Learning Through Play and Its Areas

A child with an intellectual disability is always in need of activities that stimulate attention and the senses, allowing the child to spend time happily away from academic instruction. Because the child's abilities are limited, activities such as counting colored beads on an abacus can be useful as a form of play. Such an activity can later help teach the child how to count and how to assemble a part and place it in the correct position.

Colors and Coloring

When a child with an intellectual disability colors, the activity may be undertaken simply for the sake of coloring rather than coloring a specific shape. Through play, the child can learn the names of colors and the relationships between them. As experience develops and accumulates, the child may discover, for example, that pink is related to red and that orange is related to yellow. Through these and other activities during play, the child can form simple mental images of colors.

Playing with Water, Clay, and Modeling Clay

After playing with these materials was simply a form of play in earlier stages, it can now become an opportunity for creativity and innovation. For example, the child can make biscuits out of clay, or out of sand and water. A car tire frame or an old box can also be used by filling it with sand and allowing the child with an intellectual disability to play in it and spend free time without worrying about making the surroundings dirty. We are not teaching art simply for the sake of art; rather, we use it as a means of releasing and expressing the child's inner emotions and feelings.