intellectually disabled

adjective

: affected by intellectual disability

intellectually disabled children/adults

The academy students, ages 18 to 21, are intellectually disabled students who are at what's called a transition age and are preparing to be self-sustaining adults with the experience to land and hold down various kinds of jobs.

—Juan Siliezar

… lawmakers are poised to pass legislation that will put Florida on the cutting edge in education, savings and employment opportunities for the intellectually disabled.

—William March

Examples of intellectually disabled in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Whenever the courts decided that certain categories of people couldn’t be executed — such as those who were too young, too intellectually disabled or too mentally ill — they were often given life sentences instead and taken off death row. —Keri Blakinger, Los Angeles Times, 10 Oct. 2023

Last year, the hanging of 34-year-old Malaysian Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam sparked international outcry following psychologists’ assessment he was intellectually disabled. —Heather Chen, CNN, 28 July 2023

In the sentencing phase, grieving family members told the jury about the lives that Bowers took — elderly people and intellectually disabled brothers among them — and the unrelenting pain of their loss. —Peter Smith and Michael Rubinkam, BostonGlobe.com, 2 Aug. 2023

In the sentencing phase, grieving family members told the jury about the lives that Mr. Bowers took – a 97-year-old woman and intellectually disabled brothers among them – and the unrelenting pain of their loss. —Peter Smith, The Christian Science Monitor, 2 Aug. 2023

Singapore has now hanged 15 people – including foreigners and an intellectually disabled man – since resuming executions for drug convictions last year, in what activists say is an accelerated pace after ending a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. —Heather Chen, CNN, 28 July 2023

Ability Connection works primarily with adults who have a range of needs, from those who are intellectually disabled but can live fairly independently to people who get nutrition through feeding tubes and require complete care. —Holly Haber, Dallas News, 10 July 2023

The anger inside of me stirs at the notion that I, as a parent of an intellectually disabled child, have somehow been shorted, denied what must be the only blessing available to mothers: an honor-roll child who eventually flies the nest to white-collar success. —Erin Prater, Fortune Well, 18 Feb. 2023

The two older kids are intellectually disabled because of fetal alcohol syndrome and will never live independently. —Kwame Anthony Appiah, New York Times, 21 June 2023

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Word History

First Known Use

1955, in the meaning defined above

Medical Definition

intellectually disabled

adjective

: affected by intellectual disability

intellectually disabled children/adults

State officials and special education advocates are pushing legislation aimed at breaking down barriers they say are keeping thousands of intellectually disabled Bay State students from enrolling in college classes.

—Kathleen McKiernan, The Boston Herald