People with intellectual disabilities face striking health inequities, including a markedly reduced life expectancy, elevated rates of mental health problems, and persistent barriers to appropriate diagnosis and treatment across healthcare systems. The emotional development (ED) approach offers a transformative framework by conceptualizing emotional development as a distinct, measurable dimension of human functioning, complementary to cognitive abilities and adaptive behaviour. By systematically assessing emotional development, clinicians and researchers gain a more precise understanding of how individuals perceive, regulate, and communicate emotions, providing a powerful lens for tailoring support and care.
This Special Issue, “The emotional development approach: Understanding and supporting people with intellectual disabilities”, invites contributions that show how ED-informed assessment and intervention can fundamentally improve clinical decision-making, service design, and everyday support. A core focus is on resolving diagnostic overshadowing, enhancing differential diagnosis between intellectual disability and co-occurring psychiatric disorders, and enabling earlier, developmentally sensitive interventions. We particularly welcome work demonstrating how ED frameworks contribute to reducing inappropriate psychotropic medication use and promoting non-pharmacological, developmentally attuned interventions that enhance quality of life.
The Special Issue also aims to advance the standardization and cross-national validation of emotional development instruments across languages, cultures, age groups, and levels of disability. Implementation studies examining how the ED approach can be integrated into routine practice in diverse European healthcare systems—including community services, specialist intellectual disability mental health services, and general hospital and primary care settings—are highly encouraged. We further invite research that links challenging behaviour to emotional developmental “reference ages”, thereby clarifying which behaviours are developmentally expectable and which reflect underlying psychopathology or unmet needs.
Recognising the importance of inclusive and rights-based research, the Special Issue explicitly encourages co-produced contributions involving people with intellectual disabilities, families, and caregivers as co-authors or co-researchers. We welcome international and cross-sectoral collaborations, technology-enabled innovations (e.g. digital assessment tools, decision support systems), and policy- and practice-oriented papers that translate ED evidence into concrete recommendations for training, service organization, and health policy.
Through this Special Issue, we aim to consolidate and extend the evidence base for the emotional development approach, support its integration into clinical guidelines and educational curricula, and strengthen its role in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In doing so, the Special Issue contributes directly to the UN Sustainable Development Goals on good health and well-being, quality education, reduced inequalities, and strong, inclusive institutions. The Guest Editorial team will actively disseminate published articles via the networks NEED, EAMHID, DGSGB, and SEN-SEO to maximise impact across research, practice, policy, and community sectors.
List of Topic Areas
- Theoretical and neuroscientific foundations of emotional development in intellectual disabilities, including trajectories of emotional competencies.
- Diagnostic overshadowing and differential diagnosis, showing how ED assessment clarifies co-occurring psychiatric disorders and supports earlier intervention.
- Standardization and psychometric validation of emotional development instruments across languages, cultures, age groups, and levels of intellectual disability.
- Personalized, developmentally appropriate interventions informed by ED assessment, including psychotherapy, psychosocial, and environmental approaches.
- Emotional development and psychotropic medication reduction, including de-prescribing strategies and outcomes on quality of life and mental health.
- Challenging behaviours as developmental communication, including links to emotional developmental “reference ages” and implications for assessment and support.
- Implementation science and service innovation for integrating ED frameworks into routine clinical practice in diverse healthcare systems.
- Cross-cultural and cross-national adaptation of ED concepts, measures, and interventions in different European and international contexts.
- Co-production and inclusive research methodologies involving people with intellectual disabilities, families, and caregivers as active partners.
- Policy, rights, and health equity implications of the ED approach, including alignment with ICD 11, UN CRPD, and deinstitutionalisation strategies.
Submission Information
Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here:
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see:
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”.
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.
Journal Information: Scopus journal Q3, H-Index 20
Key Dates
Closing date for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2026
For more details refer here
