After the fall of communism, Polish psychiatry and special education underwent profound transformations, adopting different paradigmatic assumptions in their approach to intellectual disability. The aim of this study is to compare the theoretical foundations of both disciplines and analyze the effects of these discrepancies. Contemporary psychiatry and clinical psychology are based on the biopsychosocial paradigm, integrating biological factors with the environmental model and quantitative research, which ensures their presence in international scientific discourse. Polish special education, on the other hand, has adopted a humanistic paradigm, favoring qualitative methodologies and rejecting the biomedical perspective, which results in its methodological isolation and the neglect of the medical aspects of disability. Despite the converging practical goals of community psychiatry and pedagogy, there is a fundamental divergence between the disciplines that hinders cooperation. In conclusion, there is a need to establish a dialogue and develop a common conceptual framework that combines the medical basis of neurodevelopmental disorders with the humanistic dimension of support.