The ICF

Abstract

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) provides a conceptual framework and common language for describing human functioning and disability (World Health Organization, 2001). The ICF provides direction for comprehensive rehabilitation by classifying individual functioning at the levels of (a) body functions and structures and (b) activities and participation. Consequently, the purpose of this article is (a) to summarize the ICF; (b) to apply a case example to the framework of the ICF, involving individuals who have undergone total laryngectomy; and (c) to examine implications for both research and clinical practice. This article demonstrates how speech-language pathologists may apply the ICF framework and endorses the adoption of the framework by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in the 2001 Scope of Practice in Speech-Language Pathology.