The authors of DSM-5 chapter on intellectual disability made a significant error (typo!?) in reporting the prevalence of intellectual disability. Actually, subheading PREVALENCE in DSM 5 consists of only two sentences:
Intellectual disability has an overall general population prevalence of approximately 1% and prevalence rates vary by age. Prevalence for severe intellectual disability is approximately 6 per 1000.
So, it means that there are 10 people with intellectual disability (all levels of ID) on 1000 people. According to DSM-5, 6 out of these 10 people are people with severe intellectual disability. However, most studies point that out of all people with ID, the majority of them (85%) have mild ID. I think this needs to be corrected!
I have not done research in the area of Intellectual Disability.... but if you have validated research that challenges these numbers in the DSM 5... then contact them to understand where they derived their numbers.... As suggested above... estimates may vary dependent on the population/culture.....
I believe that the prevalence of ID in the overall population is around 1%, and the prevalence of severe ID within the population of people with an intellectual disability is 6 in 1000.
That is, 6 in 1000 individuals with an ID have a severe ID.
I have read that about 85% of individuals with ID have a mild ID, about 10% have a moderate ID, and about 10-15% have a moderate ID, and a small percentage (under 1%), have a severe ID. This fits with what is written in DSM-5.
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