February 13, 2025
The Boost
Dating, love, infatuation, sex, marriage — these can be complicated topics for parents with adolescent, teen, or young adult children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD). To complicate matters for parents, public schools don’t address the need to teach students with disabilities about sexual and reproductive health. In fact, only a handful of states, and New York is not among them, are required to teach sex ed to students with an IEP.
In part, ableist tropes about sex and relationships can prevent people with I/DD from being seen as sexual beings. Too often they’re “unable to pursue sexual relationships, mainly because stereotypes deem them asexual or too deviant,” according to the nonprofit agency YAI, which has a good introductory article on the topic, Recognizing the Sexual Rights of People with I/DD.
RELATED NEWS: Planned Parenthood’s Project SHINE Launches Sexual Health Toolkit for Youth with I/DD
Discussions on sexual health and relationships are not only the right thing to do, it can help keep your loved ones safe. A host of studies have found that a disproportionate percentage of people with disabilities of all ages face an increased risk of sexual violence.
“People with I/DD are more susceptible to sexual violence for various reasons,” according to the Administration for Community Living. “They are often more physically and financially dependent on others and more likely to be socially isolated, which increases risk.”
Health reasons, of course, are another reason it’s important to be educated on sexually transmitted diseases. Additionally, women with disabilities are less likely than their peers to receive appropriate breast and cervical cancer screenings.
Consent and agency are two other topics of critical importance to people with I/DD. You should find ways to discuss these topics (see resources below). And, FYI, certified residential settings often have specific regulations in this regard.
In New York, for instance, an Administrative Memorandum (ADM) in 2023 from the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD), lays out the guidelines. It affirms that individuals with I/DD “have rights regarding sexual expression and sexual activity and to ensure that these rights are not unnecessarily denied,” and also outlines the procedures used for determining or assessing an individual’s capacity to make an informed choice regarding sexual activity if concerns are raised,
Resources
To help you hack a path through the thicket, The Boost has pulled pulled together some helpful guides:
The National Council on Independent Living (NCIL)’s project to help people with I/DD learn about sex is a 10-video series (to be seen in any order) that discusses, among other things, what sex is; what gender is; what a healthy relationship looks like; how someone can get pregnant; and how to protect yourself against sexually transmitted diseases and infections.
Access, Autonomy, and Dignity: Comprehensive Sexuality Education for People with Disabilities
The Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore offers a guide with links to sexual health and IDD resources. The list is vast, and ranges from age-appropriate animated videos for adolescents ages 10 to 14 via amaze.org; and a guide, via the University of California, San Francisco, “Our Sexuality, Our Health: A Disabled Advocate’s Guide to Relationships, Romance, Sexuality and Sexual Health.”
Sexual Health Toolkit for Parents of Youth with IDD from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
Center for Parent Information & Resources’ Sexuality Education for Students with Disabilities
Oregon Health & Science University‘s “Sexual Health Equity for Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (SHEIDD)” offers great resources for holistic sexual health education.
(Note: The Boost has no particular expertise on sexual health and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and welcomes comments and additional information.)
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