In the modern scientific view, the concept of “mental retardation” definitely has some collective meaning, uniting various forms of pathology of all mental activity. By their origin, these pathologies can be associated with genetic damage to the brain, organic, intoxication, and other harmfulnesses. Distinguish forms of mental retardation, which may be due to the influence of various factors acting adversely, bearing a cultural and social character. For example, psychogenic influences, pedagogical neglect, improper upbringing, hearing and vision defects.
A partial or general delay in the development of the organism can be caused by any harmfulness that will affect it at the time of formation or physiological growth. A sufficiently strong and prolonged pathological effect on a ripening brain can easily lead to certain deviations in differentiation, and therefore to disturbances in the psyche of the child.
Mental retardation, or rather its form and severity, directly depends on the length of the period during which the damaging biological and adverse social factor has acted. The leading sign of mental retardation, of course, is the general underdevelopment of the most complex forms of mental activity. This pathological condition can be either congenital or acquired up to 3 years of age. Mental retardation involves a decrease in intelligence, thinking, perception, memory, attention, speech, as well as motor and emotional-volitional spheres.
The cause of mental retardation may be improper brain formation or its defeat in the early stages of development. Various types of factors affecting the fetus during prenatal development, at the time of birth, or in postpartum development can lead to this kind of brain damage. Various injuries sustained by the infant during childbirth, intoxication and maternal illness during pregnancy can also cause mental retardation.
Mental retardation is distinguished by its depth, its diagnosis can be difficult. In particular, diagnostic difficulties may arise with children who have mild mental retardation. In practice, it is difficult to differentiate between true mental retardation and a temporary delay in mental development as a result of adverse 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 the brain is underdeveloped, but the whole organism. 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: movements are not sufficiently coordinated, angular, awkward, limbs are short, mouth is half-open, skull is either significantly enlarged or reduced, physique is generally disproportionate. Quite often there are defects in speech, vision, 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 inhibition in the development of speech is caused by insufficiently developed motor skills and inability to master their movements. But still, most often, speech deficiency is associated precisely with defects in higher mental functions. In the speech of the mentally retarded, there is a scarcity of vocabulary, as well as a certain childishness in the construction of phrases. Quite often, incorrect relationships are observed between the parts of a sentence, the construction of phrases is agrammatic, they lack the declination and conjugation of words. Such speech can be supplemented by incorrect pronunciations of individual sounds, the scarcity of intonations, difficulties in moving from one syllable to another. For some individuals, spoken language may be quite developed, but in this case the ability to write and read will suffer.
Mentally retarded children also have an inability to conclude, make independent judgments, abstract and original thinking, generalizations, synthesis and analysis. Due to insufficient active attention, the perception of certain external impressions is difficult, even with sound hearing and vision. Such children, with any mental stress, are very tired.
Significant memory abnormalities, unreasonable attacks of anxiety, depression, psychosis can be noticed. You should be aware that any traumatic situation can aggravate an existing intellectual deficiency.