2016 South Carolina Code of Laws
Title 44 - Health
CHAPTER 26 - RIGHTS OF CLIENTS WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY
Section 44-26-10. Definitions.

As used in this chapter:

(1) "Aversive stimuli" means a clinical procedure which staff apply, contingent upon the exhibition of maladapted behavior, startling, unpleasant, or painful stimuli or stimuli that have a potentially noxious effect.

(2) "Client" means a person who is determined by the South Carolina Department of Disabilities and Special Needs to have intellectual disability or a related disability and is receiving services or is an infant at risk of having intellectual disability or a related disability and is receiving services.

(3) "Client's representative" means the client's parent, guardian, legal counsel, or other person who acts on behalf or in the best interest of a person with intellectual disability or a related disability.

(4) "Director" means the South Carolina Director of Disabilities and Special Needs.

(5) "Court" means a probate court of appropriate jurisdiction unless specified otherwise.

(6) "Department" means the South Carolina Department of Disabilities and Special Needs.

(7) "Facility" means a residential setting operated, assisted, or contracted out by the department that provides twenty-four hour care and supervision.

(8) "Habilitation" means the attempt to remedy the delayed learning process to develop maximum growth potential by the acquisition of self-help, language, personal, social, educational, vocational, and recreational skills.

(9) "Intellectual disability" means significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period.

(10) "Intellectual disability professional" means a person responsible for supervising a client's plan of care, integrating various aspects of the program, recording progress, and initiating periodic review of each individual plan of habilitation.

(11) "Interdisciplinary team" means persons drawn from or representing the professional disciplines or service areas included in the individual habilitation plan.

(12) "Major medical treatment" means a medical, surgical, or diagnostic intervention or procedure proposed for a person with intellectual disability or a related disability, where a general anesthetic is used or which involves a significant invasion of bodily integrity requiring an incision, producing substantial pain, discomfort, debilitation, or having a significant recovery period. It does not include routine diagnosis or treatment such as the administration of medications or nutrition or the extractions of bodily fluids for analysis or dental care performed with a local anesthetic or a nonpermanent procedure designed for the prevention of pregnancy.

(13) "Plan of habilitation" means a written plan setting forth measurable goals or behaviorally stated objectives in prescribing an integrated program of individually designed activities or therapies necessary to achieve the goals and objectives.

(14) "Planned exclusionary time-out" means the technique of behavior modification in which a client is removed from the immediate environment to a physically safe, lighted, and normal temperature room for a specific period of time not to exceed one hour under the direct continued observation of staff.

HISTORY: 1992 Act No. 366, Section 1; 1993 Act No. 181, Section 1088; 2011 Act No. 47, Section 6, eff June 7, 2011.

Editor's Note

2011 Act No. 47, Section 13, provides as follows:

"SECTION 13. In Sections 1 through 6 of this act, the terms 'intellectual disability' and 'person with intellectual disability' have replaced and have the same meanings as the former terms 'mental retardation' and 'mentally retarded'."

Effect of Amendment

The 2011 amendment substituted "intellectual disability" for "mental retardation" throughout, inserted definitions for "Intellectual disability" and "Intellectual disability professional" in subsections (9) and (10), redesignated former subsections (9) and (10) as subsections (11) and (12), and deleted the definitions for "Mental retardation" and "Mental retardation professional".