Daily Tribune
(Photo illustration from Philippine Association for Intellectual Disabilities / Facebook)
"Intellectual disability" should be replaced with "mental retardation" when referring to persons with such condition, according to health experts.
Speaking during the Department of Health Kapihan with Media Partners, Philippine Association for Intellectual Disabilities Inc., Director for Local and International Advocacy, Alphonsus de Alban explained the right and wrong phrases to use to discuss anything to do with disabilities and disabled people.
"Hindi siya politically correct kasi nga ginagawa itong pangungutya, pagde-define sa mga bata o mga taong may intellectual disability (It's not politically correct because it has been used to mock children or people with intellectual disabilities)," de Alban said.
"While itong mental retardation, is I believe, still ginagamit pa rin siya lalo na ng mga doctors, psychologists, tayo sa society tinanggal yan dahil hindi maganda ang naging karanasan ng ating mga kababayan na may intellectual disability dahil nga ginagamit ito bilang katatawanan or bilang pangungutya (While this mental retardation, I believe, is still being used especially by doctors, psychologists, we, in the society, have removed it because the experience of our fellowmen with intellectual disability has not been good because the term as been used as a mockery)," he added.
Intellectual disability, according to Dr. Michelle Sy, fellow in Child Neurology of the Child Neurology Society of the Philippines, is neurodevelopment disorders that begin in childhood and are characterized by deficits in intellectual functioning and adaptive functioning.
"Before mental retardation siya because it's dependent mostly on the IQ level," Sy added.
"But currently, to make it more inclusive and more open for intervention, mas finocus na ang (we focused on) intellectual disability in terms of adaptive functioning, yung capability nila (their capability) to adapt to their environment despite any problem in their intellectual functioning," she furthered.
The National Intellectual Disability Week is commemorated from 14 to 20 February.
