Decision making for adolescents with developmental disability

To provide health care for an adolescent with developmental disability, practitioners need to establish their medical decision maker or ‘person responsible’. Always consider the adolescent’s preferences first (whether expressed verbally or non-verbally), and whether they have capacity for some decisions; for advice, see Consent, capacity and decision making in people with developmental disability.

In legal terms, if the adolescent lacks capacity for decision making, the role of parents in decision making on their behalf will transition from ‘parent’ to ‘person responsible’ as the adolescent gets older.