Sec. 591.003. DEFINITIONS

In this subtitle:

(1) "Adaptive behavior" means the effectiveness with or degree to which a person meets the standards of personal independence and social responsibility expected of the person's age and cultural group.

(2) "Board" means the Texas Board of Mental Health and Mental Retardation.

(3) "Care" means the life support and maintenance services or other aid provided to a person with mental retardation, including dental, medical, and nursing care and similar services.

(4) "Client" means a person receiving mental retardation services from the department or a community center.

(5) "Commissioner" means the commissioner of mental health and mental retardation.

(6) "Community center" means an entity organized under Subchapter A, Chapter 534, that provides mental retardation services.

(7) "Department" means the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation.

(7-a) "Intellectual disability" means significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning that is concurrent with deficits in adaptive behavior and originates during the developmental period.

(8) "Interdisciplinary team" means a group of mental retardation professionals and paraprofessionals who assess the treatment, training, and habilitation needs of a person with mental retardation and make recommendations for services for that person.

(9) "Director" means the director of a community center.

(10) "Group home" means a residential arrangement, other than a residential care facility, operated by the department or a community center in which not more than 15 persons with mental retardation voluntarily live and under appropriate supervision may share responsibilities for operation of the living unit.

(11) "Guardian" means the person who, under court order, is the guardian of the person of another or of the estate of another.

(12) "Habilitation" means the process, including programs of formal structured education and training, by which a person is assisted in acquiring and maintaining life skills that enable the person to cope more effectively with the person's personal and environmental demands and to raise the person's physical, mental, and social efficiency.

(13) "Mental retardation" means intellectual disability.

(14) "Mental retardation services" means programs and assistance for persons with mental retardation that may include a determination of mental retardation, interdisciplinary team recommendations, education, special training, supervision, care, treatment, rehabilitation, residential care, and counseling, but does not include those services or programs that have been explicitly delegated by law to other state agencies.

(15) "Minor" means a person younger than 18 years of age who:

(A) is not and has not been married; or

(B) has not had the person's disabilities of minority removed for general purposes.

(15-a) "Person with intellectual disability" means a person determined by a physician or psychologist licensed in this state or certified by the department to have subaverage general intellectual functioning with deficits in adaptive behavior.

(16) "Person with mental retardation" means a person with intellectual disability.

(17) "Resident" means a person living in and receiving services from a residential care facility.

(18) "Residential care facility" means a facility operated by the department or a community center that provides 24-hour services, including domiciliary services, directed toward enhancing the health, welfare, and development of persons with mental retardation.

(19) "Service provider" means a person who provides mental retardation services.

(20) "Subaverage general intellectual functioning" refers to measured intelligence on standardized psychometric instruments of two or more standard deviations below the age-group mean for the tests used.

(21) "Superintendent" means the individual in charge of a residential care facility.

(22) "Training" means the process by which a person with mental retardation is habilitated and may include the teaching of life and work skills.

(23) "Treatment" means the process by which a service provider attempts to ameliorate the condition of a person with mental retardation.

Added by Acts 1991, 72nd Leg., ch. 76, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1991. Amended by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 60, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1993. Amended by: Acts 2011, 82nd Leg., R.S., Ch. 272 , Sec. 5, eff. September 1, 2011.