special education

1. MENTAL RETARDATION
and
HEARING IMPAIRMENT
A Presentation By:
Jill Angelique B. Limas
and
Cheryl L. Lobiano

2. DEFINITION of
MENTAL RETARDATION
• sub-average intellectual functioning, existing
concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior
and manifested during the developmental period that
adversely affects a child’s educational
performance

3. What is Intellectual Functioning
Level?
• Intellectual functioning level is defined by
standardized tests that measure the ability
to reason in terms of mental age
(intelligence quotient or IQ).
• Mental retardation is defined as an IQ
score below 70–75.

4. What are Adaptive Skills?
• Refers To Skills Needed For Daily Life.
 Communication
 Self care
 Social skills
 Home-living skills
 Leisure
 Health and safety
 Self-direction
 Functional academics
 Community use
 Work

5. PREVALENCE
• AAMR – estimates that 2.5% of the population
has mental retardation
• The Arc – estimates at 3% of the population has
this disability
• Ratio between boys and girls is at 1.5:1

6. CAUSES of MENTAL
RETARDATION:
• Genetic Factors
• Pre-natal Illnesses and Issues
• Childhood Illnesses and Issues
• Environmental Factors

7. Genetic Factors
• 30% of cases
• May be caused by an inherited genetic
abnormality
– Fragile x syndrome
– Single gene defects
– Accident or mutation in genetic developement

8. Pre-natal Illnesses and Issues
• Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)
• Maternal infections and illnesses
- glandular disorders, rubella, toxoplasmosis, and
cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection
- high blood pressure (hypertension)
blood poisoning (toxemia)
• Birth defects that cause physical deformities
of the head, brain, and central nervous
system

9. Childhood Illnesses and Injuries
• Hyperthyroidism
• Whooping cough
• Measles
• Chickenpox
• Hib disease
• Meningitis
• Encephalitis
• Traumatic brain injury

10. Environmental Factors
• Ignored or neglected infants
• Children who live in poverty and suffer from
malnutrition
• unhealthy living conditions
• Abuse
• improper or inadequate medical care

11. Characteristics of MR
• LEARNING CHARACTERISTICS
 Attention - difficulty focusing their attention,
maintaining it, selectively attending to
relevant stimuli, less attention to allocate,
they do not know how to attend to the
relevant aspects of dimensions of the
problem.

12.  Memory - ability to remember information; factors that
may contribute to the memory difficulties of persons
with mental retardation include problems attending to
relevant stimuli, inefficient rehearsal strategies, and an
inability to generalize skills to novel settings or tasks.
 Academic Performance - Students with mental
retardation usually have to work harder and practice
longer than other students in order to learn academic
skills, this deficiency is seen across all subject areas, but
reading appears to be the weakest area, specially reading
comprehension; they are also deficient in arithmetic

13. • Motivation - Past experiences with failure typically lead
individuals with mental retardation to exhibit an external
locus - they are likely to believe that the outcomes of their
behavior are the result of circumstances and events beyond their
personal control, rather than their efforts. Repeated episodes
of failure also give rise learned helplessness - the
perception that no matter how much effort they put forth, failure
is inevitable. Accumulated experiences with failure also
result in a style of learning and problem solving
characterized as ouster-directedness - a loss of confidence
and trust in one’s own abilities and solutions and a reliance on
others for cues and guidance

14. • Generalization - the ability to learn a task or idea
then apply it in other situations. Learning in
someone who is mentally retarded is situation
specific. Generalization of responses can be
facilitated (e.g. by using concrete materials rather
than abstract representations; by providing
instruction in various settings where the
strategies of skill will typically be used; by
incorporating a variety of examples and
materials; or by simply informing the pupils of
the multiple applications that are possible).

15. • Language Development – delays in development
of language; vocabulary more limited;
grammatical structure and sentence complexity
are often impaired; speech disorders are
common (e.g errors of articulation – additions
or distortions); fluency disorders (stuttering);
voice disorders (hyper-nasal speech or concerns
about loudness).

16. • SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS
 Social problems – poor interpersonal skills,
socially inappropriate or immature behavior
 Emotional problems – loneliness and depression
 Behavioral problems – compulsive eating, hair
pulling, biting
 Adaptive behavior problems
• PHYSICAL & MEDICAL CHARACTERISTICS
 Less physically fit

17. HISTORY
• Ancient Greece and Rome – infacticide
• 2nd Century AD – sold for entertainment
• Dawning of Christianity - movement toward
care for the less fortunate
• Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius -
advocated human treatment for the mentally
retarded, developmentally disabled, or infirmed

18. • Middle ages (476 - 1799 A.D.) - the status and care of
individuals with mental retardation varied greatly: more
human practices evolved but many children were sold
into slavery, abandoned, or left out in the cold
• 1690 - John Locke published his famous work “An
Essay Concerning Human Understanding”
• 1790 - Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard published an account
of his work with Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron.
• 1848 – Edouard Seguin helped establish the
Pennsylvania Training School
• 1850 - Samuel Gridley Howe began the School of
Idiotic and Feeble Minded Youth

19. • 1896 - the first public school class for children
with mental retardation began in Providence, RI.
• 1905 - Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon
developed a test in France to screen students not
benefiting from regular curriculum
• 1916 – Lewis Terman of Stanford University
published the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale
in the US.
• 1935 – Edgar Doll published the Vineyard Social
Maturity Scale.

20. • 1950 – Parents formed the National Association for
Retarded Children (The Arc)
• 1959 - AAMR published its first manual on the
definition and classification of mental retardation, with
diagnosis based on an IQ score of one standard
deviation below the mean (approximately 85)
• 1961 – John F. Kennedy established the first
President’s Panel on Mental Retardation
• 1969 – Bengt Nirje published a key paper defining
normalization. Wolf Wolfensberger championed
normalization in the United States.

21. • 1973 – AAMR published a revised definition that
required a score on IQ tests of two standard deviations
below the mean (approximately 70 or less) and
concurrent deficits in adaptive behavior.
• 1975 - United States Congress passed the Education for
the Handicapped Act, now titled the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act - guaranteed the appropriate
education of all children with mental retardation and
developmental disabilities, from school age through 21
years of age
• 1986 – IDEA was amended to guarantee educational
services to children with disabilities age 3 through 21
and provided incentives for states to develop infant and
toddler service delivery systems

22. • 1992 - AAMR published “System 92” a radically
different definition of mental retardation with a
classification system based on intensities of supports.
• 2002 – AAMR published revision of the 1992
definition; retains classification by intensities of
supports; returns to IQ of approximately two standard
deviations below mean; adds social participation and
interactions as fifth dimension of functioning.

23. CLASSIFICATION of MR
• Mild
• Moderate
• Severe
• Profound

24. Mild Mental Retardation
• 85% of the mentally retarded
• IQ score ranges from 50-75
• often acquire academic skills up to the 6th
grade level
• can become fairly self-sufficient and in some
cases live independently, with community
and social support

25. Moderate Mental Retardation
• 10% of the mentally retarded
• IQ scores ranging from 35-55
• can carry out work and self-care tasks with
moderate supervision
• typically acquire communication skills in childhood
• able to live and function successfully within the
community in a supervised environment

26. Severe Mental Retardation
• 3-4% of the mentally retarded
• IQ scores of 20-40
• may master very basic self-care skills and some
communication skills
• able to live in a group home

27. Profound Mental Retardation
• 1-2% of the mentally retarded
• IQ scores under 20-25
• may be able to develop basic self-care and
communication skills with appropriate
support and training
• need a high level of structure and supervision

28. TREATMENT
and MEDICATION
• no treatments are available specifically for
cognitive deficiency
• develop a comprehensive management plan for
the condition
• requires input from care providers from multiple
disciplines - special educators, language
therapists, behavioral therapists, occupational
therapists, and community services

29. • THANK YOU!!!