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Intellectual Developmental Disorder, Its Causes and Possible Treatments

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There are many causes that lead to Intellectual Developmental Disorder, some of them can be prevented. However, it is essential to know how to help people who have this disorder to improve themselves. Of course, not everyone has the same symptoms when it comes to this, everyone is different, and they react different to it. That´s also why there are various ways to treat this disability. This disorder proves that anyone can still carry out their lives as best as they can.

Intellectual Developmental Disorder is another way we can refer to Intellectual Disability. Either one is a new name for a disorder that used to be known as "Mental retardation". This disorder is chronic, and it limits intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior. It is very common and so a lot of research has been done about it, including its symptoms, causes, effects, treatments and how to diagnose it correctly.

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Like many disorders, intellectual disability must go through a process to be diagnosed according to the patient's severity of deficits in their adaptive functioning. The diagnose can be achieved by a clinical assessment and standardized testing of intelligence. The assessments involve information from people who are close to the person, hearing screening and observation of comprehension, communication, speech and literary skills. Even though an IQ score of 70 or below is part of the diagnostic criteria, the condition of adaptive functioning plays a bigger role. This area contains skills that might be damaged such as language, literacy, memory, reasoning, math and overall knowledge.This area contains communication skills, ability to make friendships and maintain them, empathy and social judgement which might also be affected.

This area contains responsibilities such as school tasks, jobs, money management or personal care that can be difficult for someone with this disorder to carry out.

This stage starts right after fertilization and during the gestation of an embryo. Causes that happen during this stage include brain malformations, maternal disease, environment influences which can usually be prevented and genetic syndromes. Genetic causes account for 45% of Intellectual Disability.

This phase takes time around birth, usually from the 20th week before birthing up to the 4th week after. There might be some complications during birth such as anoxia.

This last stage is all about anything that happens after birth. Some causes that might happen during the postnatal stage are brain injuries, infections, severe social deprivation and intoxications.

According to studies, this disability affects around 3% of the population, that is equivalent to approximately 200 million people. Out of those 200 million, 80% come from low income countries according to the UNDP. This means that poverty could be one of the main causes, mainly because there are scarce resources to carry out treatments and the environment might not be the most adequate to have a safe pregnancy or birth.

Having intellectual developmental disorder affects the lifestyle of the person who has it in many aspects. Not only might they need daily support to complete daily tasks, but the fact that most likely supervision and assistance are needed, they can't live by themselves. Also, it can be hard to interact with others. This means that it might be hard to get a job and it can lead to low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts/behaviors. Not to mention the presence of additional medical concerns and other mental conditions such as depression, autism, anxiety, ADHD.

There are many ways to help improve behavior and mental skills. To carry out these treatments, many factors need to be considered, such as the way they are implemented, who does them, where and when. To improve behavior some arrangements can be made in the environment and interventions like ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) and FCT (Functional Communication Training) can be applied. Lastly, social interactions have an important role in how someone who has this disability improves their intellectual and behavioral skills. They must be integrated in groups and there's a program called LEAP (Learning Experiences and Alternative Program).

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