That's so intellectually disabled.

Does this mean that Dan can go back to calling people "retards"?

Fine -- I can now just ask people to stop acting like they're severely "ID'd" and use fewer syllables. People know that just rephrasing doesn't diminish the idea or intent, right?

I really wanted to poke fun at this, but I'm actually happy to see some official language that might afford people their dignity, at least until the epithets evolve.

I don't know....'you fucking retard' has an especially unique ring to it.

the funny part is that mental retardation was actually a clinical term used to replace the former term of idiot.... we in the mental health field like to use the term "developmentally disabled" instead of "intellectual disability" since it really is more of an issue with how the brain/body developed in utero and in early life as opposed to some intellectual thing you could reason your way out of.

I don't like this at all. The distinction between someone with a learning disability and someone with Down's syndrome is significant. Special ed is tough enough. I think this is going to increase the amount of prejudice and stigmatization, not lessen it.

Does this mean we can't call Will a retard any more?

The comments on that article are brutal, ironically so.

Catering to small minds, what our government does best.

What exactly was wrong with the old wording besides normally stupid people not knowing the actual definition of the word "retard"?

Intellectually disabled sound more like Robert Reich.

What happened to "developmentally disabled?"

@6, I recall for a while the preferred term was "developmentally delayed." I got into an argument with one of my sister's case workers, explaining that my 35 year old sister was so delayed, that she would never catch up.

"intellectual disability" ...

crap, now all the gun-toting tea baggers are going to take all the parking spots.

Mr. F!

Like 6 and 12, I'm a "developmentally disabled" guy. ("Intellectual disability" sounds like a problem in grasping layered concepts, which is certainly to the developmentally disabled, but ignores the crucial component of brain development.)

what about the tard carts?

It's about self-determination and identity instead of labeling.

The fact that Dan et al. snicker while calling people retards is EXACTLY why it's being changed. Too much baggage. And no, intellectual disability, learning disability and developmental disability are NOT synonyms.

I know you think you already know what you need to know but I can't help myself. Try reading this to get some background before showing yourselves as asses.

http://www.aaidd.org/content_104.cfm

Let me just leave this here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUIxex2sN…

"you can't get aids from the ass, you dumbass."

I can't believe the government wasted time on this with all our other problems! This is why Republicans win! This is retarded!

Many states have already done the same. Washington just did so, scrubbing "mental retardation" from our statutes this year: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.…. (It was actually a 2-year process, since in the 2009 legislative session the state Code Reviser was asked to create a report of all instances of MR in state law so that the 2010 session could change them all.) And the American Psychological Association plans to replace the clinical term "mental retardation" with the term "intellectual disability" in the new DSM-V in 2013: http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pa…

I don't know if it's a permanent solution--it's hard to imagine that ID won't just join MR as a derogatory playground taunt--but it is what MR/ID self-advocates want for themselves. I suppose fags like me don't have much business arguing with how a stigmatized group asks others to refer to them.

Get off you high horse, #18. Professionals in the field have debated this issue for decades, so don't try to pass this off as a simple matter of ignorant bigots vs. enlightened experts. It took practically no time at all for MIMD to go from an esoteric term to a schoolyard taunt, and I fully expect the same will prove true for ID. You and the rest of the language police are just spinning your wheels.

"Intellectual disability" is too complicated for people for whom the term applies (like Glenn Beck). I propose something simpler, yet still respectable: "broken think-bone".

The euphemism treadmill for technical terms that basically mean "stupid" runs at a very high speed. (Did you know "cretin" was once a euphemism?) Because as a species, there's nothing we prize more highly than intelligence and nothing we despise more than its absence. "Retard" was already being used as a term of abuse in my elementary school 15 years ago. Within a couple of years, this new term will go the same way.

@18 "asses"? The term is "Equus africanus asinus", you retard.

I didn't know there was anywhere that still used 'retardation' in a technical context.

@22 Please read my link. It's not about language police and my "high horse" you deride is my career --- and countless others.

I believe people get to determine what they are called. The results of labeling causes great pain and suffering. Taunting is unacceptable. Please see Dan's project on "It gets better.'" for example.

But like I said, if you already know what you want to know, there's no room for new information.

Isn't that where "dotty" comes from? DOTI - disability of the intellect - as in, all politicians are dotty.