title: Intellectual disability and the myth of the changeling myth.
abstract: This article investigates the historical sources for the idea of the "changeling" or substitute child as an explanation for congenital intellectual disability. Pre-modern sources for this idea are elite and theological as much as popular and folkloric, nor do they refer to intellectual disability in any sense recognizable to us. Rather, both the concept of intellectual disability and the notion of a transhistorical changeling myth emerge from the historical core of modern psychology.
authors.affiliation: Open University.
authors.forename: C F
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Goodey
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Stainton
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000266:history*; D005495:Folklore; D049668:History, 15th Century; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049670:History, 17th Century; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000266:history*; D008513:Medicine in Literature; D009229:Mythology