Understanding the nurse's role in identifying children with intellectual disability.

The early diagnosis of children who have intellectual disability (ID) is crucial to ensuring the varied and complex needs of these people and their families are met in a timely and appropriate way. The ability to easily identify all children who should be assessed for ID would increase the chances of children with ID being diagnosed early on in life. This article describes ID, the kind of support children with ID need, and how nursing staff might use the Child and Adolescent Intellectual Disability Screening Questionnaire (CAIDS-Q) to help identify children who should be formally assessed for ID. Nurses who would benefit from a greater ability to identify ID include health visitors, school nurses, practice nurses, and nurses working in paediatric clinics.