Updating Intellectual Disability Terminology

The effect of these changes will be to: remove all references to “mental retardation” or “mentally retarded” from Department of Human Services, Department of Social Services, and Department of Health Administrative Rules and replace them with “intellectual disability”. These changes will remove terms from South Dakota Administrative Rules that are outdated and offensive and replace those terms with more appropriate people’s first language. The new terminology will not alter the meaning of any current rules nor will it impact any determinations for eligibility of services.