Social Interaction Profiles Among Youth with Intellectual Disabilities: Associations with Indicators of Psychosocial Adjustment

Neurodevelopmental disorders are a set of conditions, which first emerge early in development and entail impairments in personal, social, academic or occupational functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). These disorders include intellectual disabilities, communication disorders, Autism spectrum disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, specific learning disorders, and motor disorders. In this study, we focus specifically on intellectual disability. Given the common co-occurrence of neurodevelopmental disorders, the findings from this study are thus likely to extend to a large number of individuals with various forms of neurodevelopmental disorders. For instance, individuals with autism spectrum disorder often have an intellectual disability (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), which plays a key role in defining specific subgroups of youth with an autism spectrum disorder (Nordahl et al., 2022).