Four levels of mental retardation

When it comes to children, most parents certainly hope that they can grow up healthily and develop smart minds. But sometimes some things are difficult to control. Some parents will find that their children are slow in reaction and their brain development is relatively slow. This is what we often call mental retardation. Everyone wants to avoid this problem as much as possible, but we still have to deal with it rationally when we encounter it. Today I will introduce to you the several levels of this disease so that you can take more targeted measures.

Mental retardation (MR), also known as intellectual disability or mental retardation, is a common developmental disorder in children. Intellectual retardation is mainly manifested in poor social adaptability, learning ability and self-care ability; their speech, attention, memory, understanding, insight, abstract thinking, imagination and other psychological activities are obviously lagging behind children of the same age. Intellectual retardation is the basis for the diagnosis.

Causes

The causes of mental retardation can be roughly divided into two categories.

1. Biomedical reasons

Such as various genetic diseases, acquired diseases, injuries, etc.

2. Social and psychological reasons

Caused by an adverse social and cultural environment. Among the biomedical factors, there are brain damage of various causes, hypoxia, and other perinatal abnormalities.

Clinical manifestations

It is divided into 4 levels according to the level of intellectual disability and the degree of social adaptability impairment.

1. Mild mental retardation

The patient's IQ is between 50 and 69, accounting for about 80% of MR. It is not easy to be detected in the early stages. In infancy, language and motor function development may be delayed, and there are no obvious signs of abnormalities in the development of the somatic and nervous systems. During school age, learning difficulties may gradually appear. Although language development is slightly delayed, social language is still acceptable, and the child can still take care of himself and engage in simple labor and technical operations. Difficulty calculating, reading, writing, applying abstract thinking, lack of flexibility and dependence on others. There are generally no physical abnormalities and the average life expectancy is close to that of normal people.

2. Moderate mental retardation

The patient's IQ is between 35 and 49, accounting for about 12% of MR, and is usually discovered at the age of 3 to 5 years. The patients' development in all aspects in their early years is slower than that of normal children, especially the developmental delay in the ability to understand and use speech. Although they can learn to speak, their articulation is unclear, they lack vocabulary and concepts, their speech is simple, and their words often fail to express their ideas. They also lack abstract concepts, and their ability to discern the surrounding environment and their understanding of things tend to be superficial and fragmentary. When patients become adults, they can engage in simple, stereotyped or mechanical labor under supervision, and their intelligence level is equivalent to that of normal children aged 6 to 9. The patients have poor physical development, and organic causes can be found in most of them, but they can generally survive to adulthood.

3. Severe mental retardation

The patients' IQ is between 20 and 34, accounting for about 8% of MR, and are usually discovered before the age of 20. Patients often have organic lesions of the body or central nervous system, or are accompanied by deformities, and have neurological symptoms such as epilepsy and cerebral palsy. Most patients are found to have obvious mental and motor developmental delays, low language development levels, unclear pronunciation, and some are even unable to speak shortly after birth. Patients have a small vocabulary, lack abstract thinking ability, have a vague concept of numbers, cannot learn with normal children, have uncoordinated emotional responses, and are easily impulsive. When the patient reaches adulthood, he or she can perform very simple physical work under care.

4. Extremely severe mental retardation

The patients' IQ ranged from 0 to 20, accounting for 1% to 2% of MR. Patients have obvious neurodevelopmental disorders and physical deformities, extremely low intelligence levels, and no speech function. Most of them can neither speak nor understand what others say, and can only express their needs by screaming and crying. Their perception is significantly reduced, and they cannot distinguish between relatives and strangers. They have no defense or self-defense ability and do not know how to avoid danger. Daily life requires care from others. With special training, patients can only acquire extremely limited self-help capabilities. Most patients die young due to illness or poor survival ability.

treat

The causes of mental retardation are complex, and many of them are still unknown, which brings certain difficulties to treatment. The principles of treatment are early detection, early diagnosis, identification of causes, and early intervention.

During infancy and childhood, the methods, content and focus of treatment are to treat the cause as much as possible, conduct early intervention treatment as early as possible, reduce brain function damage, and compensate for the damaged brain function. In older children, education, training, and supervision are important parts of treatment. Children with mild intellectual disability can receive education; children with moderate intellectual disability can generally be trained; children with severe or extremely severe intellectual disability mainly require care, supplemented by medication and diet therapy.