Intellectual Disability

Intellectual Disability (Intellectual Developmental Disorder): is a psychological disorder it occurs during the developmental period this psychological disorder includes both intellectual and adaptive functioning deficits in conceptual, social, and practical domains. The following three criteria must be met:

A.  The child with this psychological disorder shows the deficits in intellectual functions, such as problem solving, reasoning,planning, judgment,  abstract thinking, academic learning and learning from experience. That is confirmed by both clinical assessment and individualized, standardized intelligence testing.

B. The child wth this psychological disorder show deficits in adaptive functioning that result in failure to meet developmental and sociocultural standards for personal independence and social responsibility. Without any support the adaptive deficits reduce functioning in one or more activities of daily life, like social participation, communication and independent living, in more than one environments, like  school, work, home and community.

C.Onset of intellectual and adaptive deficits througout the developmental period.

Intellectual disability disorder was formerly known as mental retardation.

Intellectual disability has a  prevalence of approximately 1% in general population. The rate of prevalence vary by age.  Approximately 6 per 1,000 has the prevalence for severe intellectual disability.

Levels of Severity of Intellectual Disability:

The different levels of severity are determined on the basis of adaptive functioning not IQ scores,as adaptive functioning detect the level of supports needed. 

Mild Level of Severity:

The symptoms of mild Level of Severity of Intellectual Disability are mentioned below:

Moderate Level of Severity:

The symptoms of moderate Level of Severity are mentioned below:

Severe Level of Intellectual Disability:

The symptoms of severe Level of Intellectual Disability are mentioned below:

Profound Level of Intellectual Disability:

The symptoms of Profound Level of Intellectual Disability are mentioned below:

Diagnostic Features:

The basic symptoms of intellectual disability also called intellectual developmental disorder  include  deficit in common intellectual abilities (Criterion A) and impairment in daily adaptive  performance, in contrast to a person’s gender and age socioculturally peers same age (Criterion B). Onset is through the period of development (Criterion C). The diagnosis of intellectual disability is diagnosed on the basis of both standardized clinical assessment and testing clinical assessment of adaptive functions and intellectual abilities.

Treatment:

Medication like antipsychotic drugs are usually used to manage the challenging behaviour of the individuals with this psychological disorder.

The therapies which gives best results in this psychological disorder are speech therapy, physical therapy and occupational therapy etc.