Intellectual Disability is characterised by significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in adaptive behaviour as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills.  This disability originates before age 18.  The following five assumptions are essential to the application of this definition:

1.    Limitations in present functioning must be considered within the context of community environments typical of the individual’s age peers and culture.

2.    Valid assessment considers cultural and linguistic diversity as well as differences in communication, sensory, motor, and behavioural factors.

3.    Within an individual, limitations often coexist with strengths.

4.    An important purpose of describing limitations is to develop a profile of needed supports.

5.    With appropriate personalised supports over a sustained period, the life functioning of the person with intellectual disability generally will improve.

This covers all different aspects of intellectual disabilities such as Down’s Syndrome, Asperger’s Syndrome, Autism, Dyslexia, Cerebral Palsy, and Epilepsy, just to mention a few.

Mental Illness is a disorder that affects feelings and behaviour. Few mental illnesses can be prevented; nearly all can be successfully managed and treated. The causes of mental illness are complex and influenced by a person’s heredity (genes), stressful life experiences, difficult family background, physical illnesses, etc. People with mental health problems often have difficulties in coping with the pressures of daily life and can lose their jobs, their benefits, their parental rights, and their basic human rights.

The most common mental illnesses are the following:

• Depression – characterized by sadness, decreased energy, loss of interests, sleep and appetite disturbance, feelings of guilt and hopelessness. Suicide remains one of  the common outcomes of depression.
   
• Schizophrenia is a disorder that is characterized by profound disruptions in thinking, affecting language, perception, including psychotic experiences. It can cause hallucinations, fear and bewilderment.
• Anxiety disorders – include phobic, panic and general anxiety (such as worry, tension, over-breathing) which can cause significant distress and disability. Because of the complex causes, a diversified and combined treatment is often proposed, such as medication, psychotherapy, family therapy, etc. Treatment takes place in different settings: psychiatric hospitals, psychiatric wards in general hospitals, community mental health services, or private psychiatrists or psychotherapists. It is important that treatment in hospitals is limited to the shortest possible period of time. Self-help groups can also be of great help (share feelings and experiences).

Kenya Society for the Mentally Handicapped is an agent for change, to perform and to carry out, for the care and welfare, interest, treatment, education and advancement of intellectually disabled persons and their families, the following actions in areas of priority affecting their lives:

1.    Identification, visibility, and recognition of persons with intellectual disabilities in Kenya.

2.    Acceptance by the mother, family, and the community at large.

3.    With respect to all special needs, supported access to basic care, treatment, rehabilitation, education and training.

4.    Inclusion in all aspects of everyday family and community life.

5.    Supported access to human rights and social justice with respect to individual decisions.

6.    Family support through adequate services and support networks to families with an intellectually disabled member.

7.    Inclusive legal and policy frameworks that are operational.