Mental retardation: causes and main characteristics

In the modern scientific notion, the concept of "mental retardation" definitely has some sort of collective significance that unites the various forms of the pathology of all mental activity. According to their origin, these pathologies can be associated with genetic damage to the brain, organic, intoxication and other hazards. They sing out the forms of mental retardation that can be caused by the influence of various factors acting unfavorably, of a cultural and social nature. For example, psychogenic influences, pedagogical neglect, wrong education, hearing and visual defects.

Partial or general delay in the development of the body can result in any harmfulness that will affect it at the time of formation or physiological growth. A sufficiently strong and prolonged pathological effect on the maturing brain can easily lead to certain deviations in differentiation, and hence to disturbances in the child's psyche.

Mental retardation, or rather its form and severity, directly depend on the duration of the period during which the damaging biological and unfavorable social factor operated. The leading symptom of mental retardation, of course, is the general underdevelopment of the most complex forms of mental activity. This pathological condition can be both congenital and acquired up to 3 years of age. Mental retardation implies a decrease in intelligence, thinking, perception, memory, attention, speech, as well as the motor and emotional-volitional spheres.

The cause of mental retardation may be an incorrect formation of the brain or its defeat in the early stages of development. To this kind of damage to the brain can result in various factors affecting the fetus during fetal development, at the time of delivery, or in postpartum development. Also, various trauma caused by an infant during childbirth, intoxication and mother's illness during pregnancy can cause mental retardation.

Mental retardation is distinguished by its depth, its diagnosis can be difficult. In particular, the complexity of diagnosis can occur with children who have a mild mental retardation. In practice, it is difficult to differentiate between true mental retardation and temporary retardation of mental development as a consequence of unfavorable social conditions.

Mental retardation in children is manifested in the inferiority of mental activity and in a variety of somatic, neurological symptoms, it is for this reason that not only underdevelopment of the brain, but also of the whole organism is noted. In particular, this provision will be expressed in the case of biological damage to the embryo.

Very often, patients stand out from the crowd by their dissimilarity and appearance: the movements are not coordinated enough, angular, awkward, the limbs are short, the mouth is half open, the skull is either significantly enlarged or reduced, the overall disposition is disproportionate. Often there are defects in speech, sight, hearing, there are abnormalities in the development of internal organs.

Mental retardation is characterized by underdevelopment of speech. Many of these children pronounce their first words only after 4 years. Sometimes the inhibition in the development of speech is due to insufficiently developed motor skills and inability to master their movements. But most often speech deficiency is associated with defects in higher mental functions. In the speech of the mentally retarded, the scarcity of the vocabulary is observed, as well as a certain childishness in the construction of phrases. Quite often there are incorrect relationships between parts of the sentence, the construction of phrases is grammatical, there are no declensions and conjugations of words. This speech can be supplemented by incorrect pronunciation of individual sounds, the paucity of intonations, difficulties in switching from one syllable to another. In some individuals oral speech can be sufficiently developed, but in this case, the ability to write and read will suffer.

In mentally retarded children, in addition, there is an inability to inference, independent judgments, abstract and original thinking, generalizations, synthesis and analysis. Due to insufficiently active attention, the perception of certain external impressions is difficult, even with hearing and vision preserved. Such children become very tired at any mental strain.

There may be significant deviations in memory, unreasonable attacks of anxiety, depression, psychosis. One should know that any psychotraumatic situation can aggravate the existing intellectual insufficiency.