The sexuality of people with mild intellectual disability: Perceptions of clients and caregivers

The sexuality of people with mild intellectual disability was assessed via administration of the Measure to Assess Sexual and Relational Knowledge, Experience, Feelings and Needs (Sex Ken-ID), an instrument developed to enable direct and comprehensive assessment of these areas preliminary to designing appropriate sex education programs. This paper reports on a study where data on the sexuality of a group of people with mild intellectual disability were obtained by interviewing them directly, and then comparing their responses with the perceptions of their caregivers, as well as to data collected from a group of people without intellectual disability. A broad range of sexual areas was studied, and subjects were questioned about their knowledge, experience, feelings and needs in each of these areas. Care staff consistently overestimated the responses of their clients, whom they perceived to be more knowledgeable and experienced, have more positive feelings and a greater need to know, than was indicated by the clients themselves. The group without intellectual disability demonstrated a higher level of sex knowledge and reported greater interactive sexual experience than the people with intellectual disability. The exceptions to this were that the latter group had experienced higher levels of sexual abuse, and reported equal frequencies of same-sex experiences. The implications of these findings with regard to sex education programs are discussed.