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We take so much for granted in our safe world that we have built around us but some families are not so fortunate andin some ways very fortunate. For into their world comes the Special child. These are the children that have developmental disabilities such as the mentally challenged who are defined by a number and this number is an IQ of seventy and below. This puts them in the class of mentally challenged.

Developmental disability is defined as a cognitive, emotional or physical impairment especially those that relate to abnormal sensory or motor development, this appears in infancy or childhood and is defined by failure or delay in progressing through the normal developmental stages of childhood. this covers a wide umbrella of diagnoses but it includes the mentally challenged child. These words don’t tell of the struggles that parents go through with a mentally challenged child. They just give an explanation of what they suffer from but there is so much more to their world. In this article i will try to give a detailed description of the mentally challenged child and the world that they live in. I will also give factual information to help people understand these special children.

Termin-Binet gave the first English language IQ test. This was an instrument that  was developed by Binet in France is to measure  a persons potential.  It was used to measure a person’s intellectual capacity. This was based on language, vocabulary, reasoning of numbers, motor skills, memory and analysis skills. They started with a score of 100 with a standard deviation of 15 or 16.  Mental retardation is considered when when an individual scores two standards below 100. It was taken into consideration that other cognitive abilities could be affected such as depression or anxiety which can contribute to low IQ scores. These have to be ruled out before a true diagnoses can be given.

The chart goes as follows: profound retardation is an IQ below 20, a severe retardation is 20 to 34, moderate retardation is 35 to 49, mild retardation is 50 to 69 and borderline is 70 to 79.

There are many reasons for a child to be mentally challenged such as genetic conditions which is the number one factor,these include such conditions as Down Syndrome, Klinefelter’s Syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome, Neurofibromatosis, congenitial hypothyroidism, William’s Syndrome, Phenylketonuria, and Prader-Willi Syndrome.

Other reasons are problems during pregnancy  when the fetus does not develope properly, a woman that consumes alcohol or contracts an infection such as Rubella. Problems at birth due to lack of oxygen can also cause mental retardation due to brain damage.

Exposure to certain kinds of diseases such as whooping cough, measles or menningitis or toxins can produce the same results such as lead or mercury.

One preventable reason for mental retardation is iron deficiency. It is the cause of 2 billion people being affected worldwide and it is the most preventable cause of mental retardation. This is rampant in third world countries such as India, Russia and China. some of these countries have taken steps to prevent this while others have not.

The reasons are many but the results are the same. These children live in a world of their own, If we are lucky they will let us in but in some cases they would rather be there alone. Maybe in the future there will be a time when our children are not afflicted by this disability but for now they are a very special part of many families. For more helpful information go to Hugz4me.com.

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