Mental Retardation
Definition Mental retardation is described as below-average general intellectual function with associated deficits in adaptive behavior that occurs before age 18.
Overview, Causes, & Risk Factors
Causes of mental retardation are numerous, but a specific reason for mental retardation is determined in only 25% of the cases.
Failure to adapt normally and grow intellectually may become apparent early in life or, in the case of mild retardation, not become recognizable until school age or later. An assessment of age-appropriate adaptive behaviors can be made by the use of developmental screening tests. The failure to achieve developmental milestones is suggestive of mental retardation.
A family may suspect mental retardation if motor skills, language skills, and self-help skills do not seem to be developing in a child or are developing at a far slower rate than the child's peers.
The degree of impairment from mental retardation has a wide range from profoundly impaired to mild or borderline retardation. Less emphasis is now placed on degree of retardation and more on the amount of intervention and care required for daily life.
Risk factors are related to the causes. Mental retardation affects about 1 to 3% of the population.
Causes of mental retardation can be roughly broken down into several categories:
- unexplained (This category is the largest and a catchall for undiagnosed incidences of mental retardation.)
- trauma (prenatal and postnatal)
- infectious (congenital and postnatal)
- chromosomal abnormalities
- genetic abnormalities and inherited metabolic disorders
- metabolic
- toxic
- nutritional
- environmental
- poverty
- low socioeconomic status
- deprivation syndrome
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