In the UK, poll shows discrimination against people with intellectual disabilities still rampant

From The Guardian in the UK:

Discrimination against people with learning disabilities and misconceptions about their lives is still widespread in the UK, despite a string of high profile hate crime cases, a poll reveals today.

A third of Britons think those with such disabilities cannot live independently or do jobs, while almost a quarter imagined they would be living in care homes. Nearly one in ten (8%) expected them to be cared for in a secure hospital out of town.

There was however also a high awareness of the challenges facing the learning disabled. Nine out of ten of those questioned for Turning Point, a leading health and social care provider, thought they experienced discrimination, and more than half (51%) thought they were the most discriminated against group in society — coming above other groups often perceived to experience discrimination, including gay people (44%), overweight people (43%) and ethnic minorities (40%).

Hate crime against those with learning disabilities — of whom there are 1.5 million in the UK — has hit the headlines repeatedly in recent months.

Last autumn an inquest heard how Fiona Pilkington (pictured) killed herself and her teenage daughter Francecca (pictured) — who had a mental age of four — after apparently being driven to despair by the continued abuse her family had suffered.

The survey of 1,100 adults also revealed a lack of knowledge about what constitutes a learning disability. A third thought mental illness was a learning disability, and a quarter classified dementia as one.

Adam Penwarden, Turning Point's director of learning disability services, said such misconceptions contributed to widespread discrimination.

"People often think individuals with a learning disability are 'different' and discriminate against them because of this," he said.

"In fact, they can make a great contribution to society when given the right support. This includes working, living independently and playing an active role within the local community."

Rosa Monckton, who has a daughter with Down's syndrome, said it those with learning disabilities were frequently inaccurately stereotyped in a purely negative way.

"When people were asked in the survey to describe a typical person with a learning disability they most frequently suggested negative characteristics such as having poor social skills, lack of confidence, shouting, being aggressive or slurred speech," she said.

"Positive characteristics, for example being warm, extrovert or funny, scored far lower, showing people have pre-conceived ideas about how a person with a learning disability will think and behave."