INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY AND AGING - ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES FROM RECENT RESEARCH

Ageing in people with intellectual disabilities has become a central c oncern of service providers and research workers during the past 20 ye ars. Their emergence as an identifiable population of older people wit h intellectual disabilities reflects, in part, improvements in medical and social service provision. However, interest in this group is prim arily a reflection of the fact that, despite services developed in the light of principles of normalization, they remain readily identifiabl e as people in receipt of specialist intellectual disability services, in consequence typically clearly differentiated from the mainstream o f older people generally. Analysis of this situation and other factors impacting on older people with intellectual disabilities can be under taken through the use of ecological models conceptualized in terms of interacting, nested ecologies. The emergence of research on the impact of cultural influences on family carers and service provision is addr essed within the framework of the ecological model, and methodological cautions are offered. The enduring the role of family carers and thei r motivation to continue caring is described.