(Re)Signification in the Assessment Process of Young and Adult Subjects with Intellectual Disability

ABSTRACT This paper aims at problematizing the assessment process of subjects with Intellectual Disabilities (ID), and its effects in terms of definition, classification and diagnoses produced on ID. The proposed discussions stem from an analysis of the different approaches presented in the manuals of the American Association for Intellectual and Developmental Disability (AAIDD, 2010 and AAMR, 2006) and their (re)significations. We seek to put under tension the discourses used to define who the subjects with ID are; what characteristics constitute them; what behaviors characterize them; what learning potential they have and what supports they need in the educational context. In articulation with these analyzes, we present data produced in the project “The contributions of Rio Grande do Sul for the validation of the Support Intensity Scale - SIS, in Brazil”. Based theoretically on the socio-anthropological discussions proposed by Lev S. Vygotsky, we consider the data as elements for the construction of an analysis that indicates the possibility (and necessity) to look at the ID from a perspective other than one that derives from IQ indicators, which are historically responsible for the delimitation of ID in levels of severity, whose development possibilities were previously indicated by clinical diagnoses.