The purpose of the study is to analyze perception of the adult population about intellectual disability (ID), its causes and effectiveness of specialist interventions. Material and methods. 1119 people were interviewed (men — 441, women — 678) aged 18 to 85 years (mean age — 34.3 ± 14.5 years). Urban residents — 851 people (76.1%), rural dwellers — 268 (23.9%). Each respondent was offered one vignette describing a sick child aged 8—10 with ID: typical, dyslalic, bradypsychic and dysphoric. Mathematical and statistical processing included descriptive statistics and calculation of the χ2 distribution. Results. 49.1% of the respondents have correctly recognized ID in vignettes. Out of the incorrect answers, various psychological characteristics prevailed (25.3%) of the child; negative character traits with pessimistic assessments (23.2%); illness, including mental disorders (18.6%); defects in education and upbringing (15.6%). The respondents most often (38.5%) suggested assistance by psychologists, especially to patients with a bradypsychic variant of ID, a speech therapist — with a dyslalic one, teachers — with a typical one, psychiatrists — with a dysphoric one. 85.3% of the respondents expected improvement in the child's condition after the specialist intervention. The probable causes of ID included improper upbringing and disharmonious family relations, more often in case of a typical variant, hereditary burden and early childhood diseases — in dyslalic, alcohol consumption, poverty — in dysphoric, all of the above — in case of a bradypsychic variant. Conclusion. The study has identified an insufficient level of public awareness of ID, reflecting its delayed diagnosis in children, peculiarities of the “channels” for seeking assistance with excessively high expectations of the condition improvements.

intellectual disability, mental retardation, child case vignettes, awareness, population.