Understanding People Diagnosed With Developmental Disabilities
Developmental disabilities cause individuals living with them many difficulties in certain areas of life, especially in "language, mobility, learning, self-help, and independent living". Developmental disabilities can be detected early on and persist throughout an individual's lifespan. Developmental disability that affects all areas of a child's development is sometimes referred to as global developmental delay.
Developmental disability is a diverse group of chronic conditions that are due to mental or physical impairments that arise before adulthood.
Most common developmental disabilities:
Down syndrome is a condition in which people are born with an extra copy of chromosome 21. Normally, a person is born with two copies of chromosome 21. However, if they are born with Down syndrome, they have an extra copy of this chromosome. This extra copy affects the development of the body and brain, causing physical and mental challenges for the individual.
Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is thought to cause autism and intellectual disability, usually among boys.
Pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) are a group of developmental disabilities that can cause significant social, communication and behavioral challenges.
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) are a group of conditions that can occur in a person whose mother drank alcohol during pregnancy.
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of disorders that affect a person’s ability to move and maintain balance and posture. CP is the most common motor disability in childhood.
Intellectual disability, also (sometimes proscriptively) known as mental retardation, is defined as an IQ below 70 along with limitations in adaptive functioning and onset before the age of 18 years.
The causes of developmental disabilities are varied and remain unknown in a large proportion of cases.
Even in cases of known etiology the line between "cause" and "effect" is not always clear, leading to difficulty in categorizing causes.
Genetic factors have long been implicated in the causation of developmental disabilities. There is also a large environmental component to these conditions, and the relative contributions of nature versus nurture have been debated for decades.
Current theories on causation focus on genetic factors, and over 1,000 known genetic conditions include developmental disabilities as a symptom.
Developmental disabilities affect between 1 and 2% of the population in most western countries, although many government sources acknowledge that statistics are flawed in this area. The worldwide proportion of people with developmental disabilities is believed to be approximately 1.4%. It is twice as common in males as in females, and some researchers have found that the prevalence of mild developmental disabilities is likely to be higher in areas of poverty and deprivation, and among people of certain ethnicities.
Article By American Coalition of Citizens With Disabilities
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