Terms Used In Texas Health and Safety Code 591.003

  • Guardian: A person legally empowered and charged with the duty of taking care of and managing the property of another person who because of age, intellect, or health, is incapable of managing his (her) own affairs.
  • Person: includes corporation, organization, government or governmental subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, association, and any other legal entity. See Texas Government Code 311.005

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(2) Repealed by Acts 2015, 84th Leg., R.S., Ch. 1, Sec. 3.1639(110), eff. April 2, 2015.
(3) “Care” means the life support and maintenance services or other aid provided to a person with an intellectual disability, including dental, medical, and nursing care and similar services.
(4) “Client” means a person receiving intellectual disability services from the department or a community center. The term includes a resident.
(4-a) “Commission” means the Health and Human Services Commission.
(5) “Commissioner” means the commissioner of aging and disability services.
(6) “Community center” means an entity organized under Subchapter A, Chapter 534, that provides intellectual disability services.
(7) “Department” means the Department of Aging and Disability Services.
(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 intellectual disability professionals and paraprofessionals who assess the treatment, training, and habilitation needs of a person with an intellectual disability and make recommendations for services for that person.
(9) “Director” means the director or superintendent of a residential care facility.
(9-a) “Executive commissioner” means the executive commissioner of the Health and Human Services Commission.
(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 an intellectual disability 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) Repealed by Acts 2023, 88th Leg., R.S., Ch. 30 (H.B. 446), Sec. 14.01(2), eff. September 1, 2023.
(14) “Intellectual disability services” means programs and assistance for persons with an intellectual disability that may include a determination of an intellectual disability, 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 an 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) Repealed by Acts 2023, 88th Leg., R.S., Ch. 30 (H.B. 446), Sec. 14.01(2), eff. September 1, 2023.
(17) “Resident” means a person living in and receiving services from a residential care facility.
(18) “Residential care facility” means a state supported living center or the ICF-IID component of the Rio Grande Center.
(19) “Service provider” means a person who provides intellectual disability 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) Repealed by Acts 2015, 84th Leg., R.S., Ch. 1, Sec. 3.1639(110), eff. April 2, 2015.
(22) “Training” means the process by which a person with an intellectual disability 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 an intellectual disability.