Cognable

Prevalence

Note that where some UK organisations below use the term 'learning disability' it is to denote intellectual disability, they are not refering to scholastic disabilites such as dyslexias, AD/HD or other specific cognitive impairments.

UK Figures - 'Hatton'

Hatton's estimates are favoured by clinical academics and generally considered reliable.

• Mild ID - 18 per 1000 people.
• Severe ID - 3 to 4 per 1000 people.

Source: Emerson C, Hatton C, Bromley J & Caine A (1998)
Clinical Psychology and People with Intellectual Disabilities. Wiley and Sons

UK Figures - 'Valuing People'

Another widely quoted statistic originates from the UK Government Whitepaper 'Valuing People' and estimates the 1999 figures for incidence of 'Learning Disabilities' at:

• Mild Learning Disabilities - 25 per 1000 people or 1.2 million people in total.
• Severe and Profound Learning Disabilities - 210,000 people.

Source: Valuing People Whitepaper, UK Government 2001

UK Figures - 'Mencap'

Mencap's 2010 statistics:

• 1.5 million people in the UK have a learning disability.
• 200 babies are born with a learning disability every week.
• 8 out of 10 people with a learning disability get bullied.
• There are more than 29,000 people with a severe or profound learning disability who live at home with carers aged over 70.
• Less than 1 in 5 people with a learning disability work (compared with 1 in 2 disabled people generally)
• Less than a third of people with a learning disability have some choice of who they live with, and less than half have some choice over where they live.
• At least half of all adults with a learning disability live in the family home
• Just 1 in 3 people with a learning disability take part in some form of education or training.

Source: Mencap Website, 2010

UK Figures for Adults with Profound ID - 'Emerson'

Individuals with profound ID almost always have complex medical needs, sensory impairments and severe physical disabilities. Such individuals historically have had limited life-expectancy and therefore children with profound ID have outnumbered adults. Emerson's 2009 figures have been adopted by UK Goverment and currently estimate that there are around 16,000 adults in England (equates roughly to 19,000 throughout the UK) with profound ID.

Source: Emerson, E. "Estimating future numbers of adults with profound multiple learning disabilities in England". Lancaster: Centre for Disability Research, 2009

US Figures - AAIDD

AAIDD's 2010 statistics:

• Between 7 and 8 million people in the US have an intellectual disability.
• Intellectual disability affects 1 in 10 US families.

Source: AAIDD, 2010

UK Demographics

Almost all sources and researchers agree that there is a strong link between lower socio-ecomonic groups and higher incidence of mild and moderate ID. In contrast at birth severe ID are usually found to be evenly dispersed across all socio-economic groups in the UK and other wealthy countries. There are however strong links between the breakdown of families and subsequent economic hardship following the birth of a child with ID. Mencap estimate that half of UK families with a disabled child live in poverty.

International Figures

Incidence of ID in the UK is similar to that of most EU countries and the USA. In many developing countries general poverty and low standards of medical care, particularly perinatal, lead to very much higher incidence of all degrees of ID.

Future Figures

Due to increased life-expectancy and an aging population, the number of people with all levels of ID is increasing in the UK by about 1 percent per annum. The Valuing People Whitepaper predicts this will continue until at least 2015.

Additionally, the last decades have seen huge improvements in peri-natal care which has, perhaps counter-intuitively, led to a significant rise in the number of young people with severe and profound ID. Some estimates in respect profound ID population increase are as high as 500% over the past twenty-five years. Life-expectancy for this group is likely to remain much lower than average, but many more children are expected to survive into adulthood. Emerson's (2009) estimates are widely considered reliable and suggest that the number of adults with profound ID is currently increasing by 1.8% a year and will continue to do so at a similar rate until 2026.