The human brain is entrusted with the task of implementing cognitive functions. It is with their help that we are able to successfully work, study and live in this world. But, unfortunately, sometimes such a function fails. This contributes to the appearance of signs of mental retardation in children, which are sometimes diagnosed in babies up to a year of life. Such a phenomenon often does not allow a person to exist normally in this world.
Insufficient intellectual or psycho-emotional development of a child often becomes the cause of his disability, which is difficult not only for himself, but also for his relatives and friends.
Knowing the signs of mental retardation in children will allow the parent to seek medical help in a timely manner and begin a difficult path as early as possible aimed at rehabilitating the small patient and adapting him to society.
Types of pathology
Mental retardation is such a condition when the patient suffers from all cognitive functions and there is a mental inferiority that does not allow the child to adapt socially along with his peers.
Determining the degree of this pathology is necessary not only for diagnostic, but also for prognostic purposes. That is why in modern medicine a unified scale is used, which allows to assess the intelligence (IQ), which allows to identify the degree of pathology and express it with points. The results are distributed as follows:
- up to 20 points - they speak of a very difficult developmental delay of the child;
- 20-34 - about a severe degree;
- from 35 to 49 indicates a moderate degree of lag in intellectual development;
- from 50 points to 69 indicate a slight degree of lagging behind peers.
In addition to this, the child’s behavior is assessed and associated mental disorders are detected. Either the patient’s ability to adapt in society, or indications for specialized treatment, recommendations for continuous care will depend on the results of such examinations.
Previously, there was a slightly different scale with which the assessment of intelligence was carried out. She suggested the use of terms such as oligophrenia and debility, as well as imbecility. One degree or another characteristic of mental retardation was also dependent on IQ. However, the previous rating scale did not reflect the whole spectrum of variants of such a phenomenon. With its help, one could only partially indicate the degree of combination of mental disorders occurring against the background of a decrease in intelligence.
Forms of pathology
Signs of mental retardation in children may indicate congenital or acquired developmental delay options. The first of them occur in connection with hereditary syndromes, and also appear due to a variety of genetic mutations that have occurred in the cells of the embryo. Congenital pathology also occurs in connection with the intake of various toxins into the mother's body. It can be poisons, drugs, alcohol, etc.
There is also acquired dementia. Sometimes it occurs as a result of injuries to the skull, as well as transferred encephalitis and meningitis.
Severe hemolytic disease also contributes to mental retardation. It is characteristic of newborns due to Rhesus conflict and other similar forms of influence on the body of the fetus and mother.
The main stages of development
In the life of a child, educators and psychologists distinguish certain periods, which are characterized by noticeable qualitative changes in the body.
Human development occurs spasmodically during the transition from one stage to another. Based on traditional periodization, there are:
- Infant age. This is the period from birth itself, which lasts until the year of life.
- Preschool childhood. This stage begins after a year and lasts up to 3 years.
- Preschool childhood. This period takes place from 3 years to 7.
- The age of the younger student is 7-11 years.
- The average (teenage) school period is 12-15 years.
- Senior (youthful) school stage - 15-18 years.
Consider the signs of mental retardation in children in the initial stages of their development.
Infant age
It is simply impossible to identify signs of mental retardation in children up to a year, if they are expressed in a mild form. After all, such children do not yet have speech skills and it is impossible to determine the degree of development of thinking, memory, etc. The baby is a helpless creature and is not able to satisfy its any, even basic needs. His life is completely dependent on the adult who feeds him, moves in space and even flips from side to side.
However, there are some external signs of mental retardation in children, which can be detected immediately after they are born. They occur in severe violations. Among them:
- abnormal structure of the body, face and head;
- the presence of pathologies of internal organs;
- symptoms of phenylketonuria, which are pallor of the baby’s skin, sour smell of urine and body, lethargy, unnatural color of light blue eyes, muscle weakness, cramps, as well as the absence of the most elementary reactions.
If the above external signs of mental retardation in children are not observed, doctors determine the pathology by the mental and emotional development of the child, by his reaction to people and surrounding objects.
What are the signs of mental retardation in children under one year old? Many young patients have a delay in the development of upright. Such kids, much later than their peers, begin to hold their heads, sit, stand on their legs and walk. Such a delay is sometimes very significant and lasts up to 2 years.
Symptoms of oligophrenia (mental retardation) in infants are also expressed in general pathological inertness, indifference, in a reduced interest in the outside world. At the same time, loudness and irritability are not excluded.
Children under one year old, suffering from mental retardation, later acquire the need for emotional communication with adults. They have no interest in toys hanging over the crib, or those shown to them by an adult. There is also no sign form of communication among these kids.
Children with mental retardation, up to a year of life, cannot distinguish between "their" and "strangers." They do not have an active grab reflex. The formation of visual-motor coordination does not occur in such patients. In addition, there is an underdevelopment of hearing and articulatory apparatus. All this leads to the fact that mentally retarded babies do not begin to babble and walk in a timely manner.
Mental and motor development of young children
If in the first periods of life the lag in the development of the psyche and nervous system in children with mental retardation is from 2 to 3 weeks, then in the future this indicator grows literally like a snowball. And signs of mental retardation in children 4 years old already show their lag behind the norm by 1.5 or even 2 years.
The main achievement of babies at an early age is the mastery of walking, subject activity and speech skills. But this happens in children with the normal development of the body. After a year of life, healthy children will certainly begin to walk.
Some children with mental retardation are no different from their peers in terms of development of upright. However, they begin to walk quite late. Sometimes this does not happen until 3 years. Symptoms of oligophrenia in children (mental retardation) are also expressed in the movements of babies. One can observe a clumsy gait, instability, slowness, or, conversely, impulsivity.
There is also no genuine acquaintance with the objects of the surrounding world in children under the age of 3 years. A sign of mental retardation in a child is the so-called “field behavior”. The kid picks up everything that appears in his field of vision, immediately throws these things, not showing any interest in their purpose and properties.
With normal development, the emergence and development of objective activity occurs in children under 2 years of age. Signs of mental retardation of babies of this age are in its absence. They are not interested in toys (they don’t even pick them up).
Signs of mental retardation in children 2 years old can be seen in the case when the children carry out some manipulations with objects. However, making certain actions, the baby does not at all take into account the purpose of things and their properties.
Speech development
What are the signs of mental retardation in a 3 year old child? He has no prerequisites for the development of speech. They are formed only in children 4 years old. Signs of mental retardation in this case also lie in the violation of the connection between word and deed. The manipulations of the child are sometimes not sufficiently conscious. At the same time, the experience of a small patient regarding actions is not generalized and not fixed in words.
By the time when normally developing children speech turns into an active means of communication, in babies with pathology it is in an undeveloped state. The first words appear in them only in the interval from 2.5 years to 5.
Pupils with elementary education almost never initiate dialogue. Experts associate this fact with their underdeveloped speech and a narrow circle of motives and interests. Such students do not know how to fully listen to a question and cannot always answer it. In some cases, they are simply silent, while in others they try to answer something, but they do it out of place. A sign of mild mental retardation in children is speech delay. This is expressed in stuttering, nasal or dumb. A moderate degree of PO is characterized by a poor vocabulary and tongue-tied tongue. The development of the child’s speech in this case is delayed by 3-5 years.
The severe stage of mental retardation is represented by a violation of the structure of words. Such children have underdeveloped speech; they use inarticulate sounds and gestures. Only inarticulate sounds are made by patients who are diagnosed with a deep degree of UO.
Preschool age
According to experts, the fifth year of his life is crucial for the development of a small patient with mental retardation. This is the age when he begins to show interest in the objects surrounding him, to receive the simplest ideas about their properties.
In the presence of signs of mental retardation in children at the age of 6, the visual-effective (substantive-practical) type of thinking continues to dominate. Such preschoolers cannot carry out productive activities in the form of drawing and working with a designer without psychological and pedagogical classes specially organized for them. Only at the end of this period do children begin to form self-service skills in children. In this case, there are often cases when small patients are so completely unable to understand the logic and sequence of the actions they perform.
Role of the game
Psychologists noted some general patterns in the development of normal and abnormal preschoolers. So, in the life of a small patient with mental retardation, like his peers, there is always a “era of games”.
For a preschooler, such an activity should be leading. In this case, the development of the psychological foundation of a small person will be ensured. Up to 5 years, a kid with UO takes toys in his hands only for performing elementary manipulations with them. After this age, he begins to develop procedural actions. Nevertheless, in the game there is a formality of actions, stereotyping, there are no plot elements or design.
Perception and sensation
Primary school students suffering from mental retardation, much longer than their peers, examine and recognize a familiar subject. This is due to their slow visual perception. This feature has a direct impact on the orientation of children with AS in space and on their learning to read.
The perception of such patients is not differentiated. Looking at a specific subject, children see only common features in it and do not notice specific features. It is especially difficult for them to actively adapt their perceptions to changing conditions. They cannot recognize inverted images of objects, mistaking them for others.
Signs of a mild stage of mental retardation in children are expressed in difficulty orienting and narrowing the volume of visual perception. Moderate development of UD is characterized by a lag in tactile, auditory, and visual analyzers with a simultaneous anomaly in hearing and vision. Such a child cannot navigate independently in this situation.
In the case of a severe degree of UO, surface perception and satisfactory determination of surrounding objects are characteristic. In the presence of a deep degree of UO, the development of the child's psyche is noted at the lowest level. Such children are difficult to navigate, and they do not distinguish edible products from inedible objects.
Attention and memory
The processes of preservation, memorization, processing and reproduction of various information by mentally retarded children have their own characteristics. So, the attention of such students is directly related to their performance. Compared with their peers, children with MA remember much less educational material. At the same time, a rather low accuracy of the obtained knowledge is noted.
Students with intellectual disabilities have difficulty memorizing texts. The fact is that it is difficult for them to divide the material into paragraphs, to isolate the main idea from it, to establish semantic links, as well as to define support expressions and words. The result of all this is that in their memory such students retain only a small part of the proposed material.
Primary school students best remember the text from the voice of the teacher. To a greater extent, they still have the habit of orienting themselves to oral speech. Most students with MA learn reading techniques at about 10 years old. Signs of mental retardation in children are pronouncing the material to be read aloud. With simultaneous auditory and visual perception, the necessary information is easier to fix in the memory of the child.
A mild degree of UO in schoolchildren is characterized by a reduced volume of attention and its instability, deterioration in concentration and rapid forgetting. Children with a moderate degree of MA have an underdeveloped memory. They have violations in random memorization. Signs of a severe degree of UO are weak attention and low memory capacity. In the case of a deep degree of UO, children are not able to remember the material offered to them, because their memory and attention are undeveloped.
Thinking
This function is carried out using mental operations, namely synthesis and analysis, classification and generalization, comparison and abstraction. A sign of mental retardation of primary schoolchildren is the insufficient development of all levels in their mental activity. They find it difficult to solve even the simplest practical problems. An example is the combination of a picture of a familiar object cut into 2 or 3 parts, as well as the selection of a geometric figure, which is identical in size and shape to this one.
Even more difficult for primary school children with mental retardation are tasks in which it is necessary to show visual-figurative or verbal-logical thinking. The material of these students is perceived simplistically. At the same time, children miss a lot, change the sequence of logical links and are not able to establish relationships between them.
Very peculiar in primary schoolchildren with UO is the flow of thought processes. Their analysis of the visual perception of a familiar subject is fragmented and poor. It becomes more complete only when an adult helps such children with their questions.
The characteristic features of a mild degree of UO are the limitation of the ability to abstract thinking. But at the same time, relatively good figurative-visual thinking comes to light. A symptom of a moderate degree of UO is the lack of generalization, mechanical memorization and misunderstanding of the hidden meaning in the information. A severe degree of OO is manifested by unsystematic, chaotic or complete absence of semantic connections. A deep degree of development of pathology is noted by the absence of elementary thought processes.