Here we describe the history of the classification of borderline intellectual functioning and provide information about it as well as on the importance of placing it in the right context and in the right place in future editions of the DSM and other classification systems such as the ICD.īefore DSM-I, different cut-offs in IQ scores were used when it comes to what is now called intellectual disability or intellectual developmental disorder. This is in spite of the fact it is critically an important and frequently unrecognised comorbid condition vastly relevant to the diagnosis and treatment of any and all psychiatric disorders. ICD-11 will probably do the same or might score out the classification of borderline intellectual functioning altogether. As a V-code, borderline intellectual functioning ultimately has been defined solely by IQ, but by removing the IQ criterion, DSM-5 no longer provides any criteria for what exactly borderline intellectual functioning is. Within the classification of intellectual disability, even in DSM-5, the importance of standardised IQ scores is well described. This is detrimental to the concept, since it was the only criterion left. In DSM-5, similar to the new classification of intellectual disability, IQ test scores are removed from the diagnostic description of borderline intellectual functioning. 2– 4 And although ICD-11 is not due until 2017, it will likely share the same view as DSM-5. Its classification in DSM-5 has followed a similar path as in the ICD. It had different names, different boundaries, and travelled through earlier DSM editions starting as a solid element of mental deficiency in the DSM-I and ending, in DSM-5, as a V-code literally in the last place. According to the normal curve, as much as 13.6% of the population falls into this category.īorderline intellectual functioning has always been a difficult concept. The term borderline intellectual functioning describes a group of people who function on the border between normal intellectual functioning and intellectual disability, between 1 and 2 standard deviations below the mean on the normal curve of the distribution of intelligence, roughly an IQ between 70 and 85. IQ scores are, over most of the range, well described by a normal distribution. 1 Contrary to earlier DSM versions, IQ boundaries are no longer part of the classification, leaving the concept without a clear definition. One of the least highlighted changes in the DSM-5 is the modification of the classification of borderline intellectual functioning.
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