Understanding Persons with Intellectual Disabilities

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Today, according to U.S. Department of Education estimates, nearly 6 million of the nations schoolchildren, ages 6 to 21, receive special education services under Part B of the IDEA. Sixty-seven percent of those students have specific learning disabilities or speech or language impairments. Fewer than 12 percent are diagnosed with significant cognitive disabilities, such as mental retardation or traumatic brain injury (Special Education, 2004, p.1).  The students that are being served have varying mental and physical disabilities that affect they way they learn.  Some of these disabilities include mental retardation, traumatic brain injuries, autism, severe disabilities, deafness, and blindness.  There are many different characteristics and causes of these disabilities and educators need to understand them to better prepare themselves to be an effective educator.

Mental Retardation

According to the Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders, mental retardation is defined as a, Level of intellectual functioning that is well below average and results in significant limitations in the person's daily living skills (Mental Retardation, 2011, p. 1).  It can also be said to be an intellectual disability, caused by a birth defect that gives the carrier of the defect lifelong problems.  Some of these birth defects can affect the nervous system, the brain, and spinal cord.  Examples of these defects include Down syndrome and fragile X syndrome.  They also cause learning and behavioral disorders like Autism.  They can also include sensory-related disabilities that cause vision, hearing, and sight problems; metabolic disorders that affect how your body processes materials needed to function; and degenerative disorders like Rett syndrome, which becomes apparent when children are older.  This causes physical and mental problems (NIH, 2011, p. 1).

Even though mental retardation is caused by a birth defect, parents might not know for sure if their child is disabled until the child's motor skills, language skills, and self-help skills do not seem to be developing, or are developing at a far slower rate than the child's peers.  Failure to adjust to new situations and grow intellectually may become apparent early in a child's life.  In the case of mild retardation, these failures may not become recognizable until school age or later.  Mental retardation varies widely, from profoundly impaired to mild or borderline retardation (Kaneshiro & Zieve, 2009, p. 1).

Mental retardation can be caused by any condition which impairs development of the brain before birth, during birth or in the childhood years. Several hundred causes have been discovered, but in about one-third of the people affected, the cause remains unknown. The three major known causes of mental retardation are Down syndrome, fetal alcohol syndrome and fragile X  (Leibert, 1997, p.1).  Other causes of mental retardation can include: infections, chromosomal abnormalities, environmental, genetic abnormalities and inherited metabolic disorders, metabolic, nutritional, toxic, trauma, and the unexplained.

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Having a shortfall in cognitive functioning and learning styles are characteristic of children with mental retardation.  These characteristics can include poor memory, slow learning rates, attention problems, difficulty generalizing what they have learned, and lack of motivation (Heward, 2011, p.1).

Traumatic Brain Injury

In the United States, 1.4 million Americans have a brain injury every year (Brian & Spinal Cord.org, 2011, p. 1).   According to The Mayo Clinic, A traumatic brain injury is damage to the brain resulting in an injury (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2011, p. 1).  Heward (2009) states that a traumatic brain injury is,

An acquired ...

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