Talk:Sexual abuse and intellectual disability

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment edit

  This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Scottieblanton.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 09:04, 17 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment edit

  This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 September 2020 and 25 November 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Heather Branstetter.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 09:04, 17 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

References edit

The references on this page need to be made more complete. Perhaps someone with knowledge of this field could provide bibliographic information or links to the articles or studies cited. --Basil Fritts (talk) 15:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)Reply


Error in citing one statistic edit

The text says "49% will experience 10 or more abusive incidents.[5]" - however the reference reports that "49% of people with developmental disabilities, who are victims of sexual violence, will experience 10 or more abusive incidents. (Valenti-Heim, D., Schwartz, L. 1995. The Sexual Abuse Interview for Those with Developmental Disabilities.)". That's different - to reflect this study I propose changing the original text to "49% of those victims will experience 10 or more abusive incidents.[5]"

Would someone check and correct this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.109.18.2 (talk) 17:01, 7 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

UK Information edit

I would like to update this page with some information about the UK. However, I am a little uncertain about how to incorporate the information into the structure of the page, or whether additional pages need to be created for different countries. If anyone with more experience watching this page can offer advice, I would be very grateful. In any case, I will review the guidance and start trying to work this one out for myself. Thanks. Crinoline (talk) 17:56, 22 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Infobox edit

Again, it's me, the relative newcomer. I have tried to fix the issue with this article needing an infobox, but I can't work out how to do it. If someone with more experience is willing to teach me, I would be very grateful.

I have looked up the page on Infoboxes. I looked on the list of infoboxes, but couldn't find anything that looked suitable. I also looked on the Infobox Help page and tried to follow the instructions for locating a suitable infobox. I hoped to copy the one used on the Sexual Abuse page, but could not identify it in the text when I looked on the Edit tab.

Also, I am not sure that I have chosen the right infobox to copy, as there seem to be two main topics on this page: Learning Disabilities and Sexual Abuse. Does anyone else involved have an opinion on which is the main topic? Crinoline (talk) 18:31, 22 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hmm, just curious, but why do you think the article needs an infobox? I don't think that should be taken for granted. I'd prefer navigation boxes first, but some articles are kinda hard to categorize like that. Generally, I think you shouldn't worry and just be WP:BEBOLD. :) I don't know how to categorize the article, but you can have both if you like. --195.249.248.60 (talk) 23:09, 23 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
I thought the article needed an infobox because it was flagged as needing an infobox by the sexuality project! However, I've discussed this with someone on live chat and it seems better to get on with editing the article, and let someone who cares more about the infobox to add it later. Crinoline (talk) 21:48, 19 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Renaming article edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: move the page, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 19:35, 9 November 2014 (UTC)Reply


Sexual abuse of people with developmental disabilitiesSexual abuse and intellectual disability – Hello all, I'm planning to do quite a bit of work improving this article. I would like to change the terminology used, including in the article title. I'm considering changing the title to "Sexual abuse and intellectual disability" to make it more accurate and concise. Reasons as follows:


  • The term 'developmental disability' includes some conditions not involving intellecutal impairment, whereas the article clearly refers to violence against people with some kind of intellectual impairment.
  • The term 'learning disability' is common in the 'intellectual impairment' sense in the UK, but elsewhere it usually refers to dyslexia, dyscalcula, etc.
  • From a search of various literature from English-speaking countries, it seems that 'intellectual disability' would be the least ambiguous term to use. It is used by the World Health Organisation.
  • Possible issue is that the term 'intellectual disability' might not apply to people with autistic-spectrum 'disorders', but perhaps they should be mentioned in the article? In which case, should autism be added into the title? This might make for an unwieldy title.
  • I'm not sure whether the 'people with....' construction is preferred to plain 'disability'. My main reason for suggesting changing it is because the advice on naming articles recommends avoiding plurals.
  • Some people using the social model of disability don't like the 'people with....' construction, because it suggests that any problems lie with the disabled person rather than their disabling social environment, or because it doesn't make sense somehow gramatically (a bit like saying 'people with abuses').


  • The term 'sexual abuse' is also contested. Some people don't like the use of the term 'sexual abuse' for disabled adults, as it is not usually used for non-disabled adults. An alternative could be 'sexual violence'. 'Sexual abuse' doesn't appear to be a contentious term when referring to sexual violence against children.
  • I was thinking of keeping 'sexual abuse' in the title, because it is a commonly-used term that people are likely to search. The article should refer to both children and adults, and it would be possible to mention alternative terms in the body of the article.
  • People with intellectual disablities can also be perpetrators of sexual violence, and are the largest group of abusers of other people with intellectual disabilities (according to some UK statistics I've not checked yet). I feel that using 'and' instead of 'of' in the title will broaden the potential scope of the article.


Your thoughts on this would be much appreciated. If I don't hear anything for a couple of days, I will move to requesting or making the change. Thanks. Crinoline (talk) 14:32, 3 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

  • Support - this move will get rid of the all too common erroneous belief that "developmental disability" is an exact and perfect synonym for "intellectual disability" - there are many developmental disabilities that have absolutely no intellectual impairment component at all. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:37, 4 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Improvement of structure edit

I've made some small improvements (I hope) to the structure of the article today. I want to add a number of new sections, but need to think about the order they should go in. Sections I feel are needed include:

  • Outline of issues specific to people with intellectual disabilities. This may not be needed, however, if they are all covered below.
  • Recognising the signs of abuse.
  • Consequences of abuse.
  • How services manage this issue - guidance followed, etc.
  • Support to survivors - what happens now / what is effective.
  • Prevention.
  • Other factors e.g. physical disability, race, class, gender, sexuality, that might intersect with intellectual disabilities in ways that are relelvant to this topic. Crinoline (talk) 22:43, 11 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Will keep pondering this one. Crinoline (talk) 19:45, 11 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Elephant in the room? edit

It is noted in the article, correctly, that intellectually disabled people are given the same sort of protection as are children: they cannot consent to having sex because the law considers them incapable of giving such consent. However, whereas children will eventually become adults who WILL be able to give legal consent, ID adults generally will not reach such a stage. Does this not mean that society effectively prohibits ID adults from engaging in an activity which is fundamentally human? QuintBy (talk) 03:05, 20 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

The issue of consent/competence in the cases where disabled people willingly and intentionally engage in sexual activity is better covered (or could/should be) in Sexuality and disability. To cover the topic here would dilute the actual topic of this article - sexual abuse/violence. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:59, 23 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Revised lead to article to make more concise and comprehensive. Sabrina101380! (talk) 19:54, 17 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

Article Lead edit

Revised article lead to make more concise and comprehensive of article contents. Sabrina101380! (talk) 19:58, 17 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

Prevalence and Incidence edit

Revised sentence structure for clarity, fixed small grammatical errors. Sabrina101380! (talk) 22:10, 20 April 2020 (UTC) Revised sentence structure, removed added text (in British study) fixed grammatical error, checked reference need more information- unable to access Sabrina101380! (talk) 21:48, 21 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

Adding PTSD and symptoms of sexual abuse more specific to those with intellectual disability edit

In the next couple of days, I plan on adding the likelihood that those with intellectual disabilities (ID) can experience symptoms of posttraumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and differences in the expression of these symptoms compared to the general population when having experienced sexual abuse <ref></doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2009.12.005>.

I will also be adding some clarifying language aimed at normalizing intellectual disability.

--Heather Branstetter (talk) 20:50, 25 September 2020 (UTC)Reply