How Can You Help Intellectually Disabled Individuals?
If your child has an intellectual disability, then, as a parent, you must learn about your child’s disability in a much broader way to help him or her. Try to communicate and interact with parents of other children who are living with similar kinds of disabilities. This will indeed help you to be patient with your child along with knowing different experiences.
Encourage your child, try to make them responsible and independent, which can help them in the long run. Try to look out for creative opportunities for them. Consult a renowned and experienced lawyer to open new avenues for your child along with learning about services that are available for your intellectually disabled child.
Intellectual Disorder
If your child takes time to roll over, sit up, crawl, or walk, then these may be signs that your child may have an intellectual disorder. These are a few of the signs which are early signals of a child suffering from an intellectual disability. Some of the other signs are:
- A child is having trouble talking
- Slow in potty training or getting dressed
- Inability to recall and remember things
- Failure to connect actions with subsequent results that follow
- Explosive tantrums
- Difficulty in thinking logically or in solving problems
If your child is showing these signs, then he or she may have an intellectual disability. It is seen that approximately 2.5 million Americans live with this kind of disability and the adults suffering might be unemployed or underemployed.
For learning complete information about your rights and services, consult an attorney who can aid you in understanding your rights in a better way. Let’s take a deep dive into knowing more about this disability.
What is Intellectual disability?
One of the most common disabilities which affects the development of an individual is that of deteriorating intellectual power. A disability of this kind is defined as an ailment when a person suffers from certain constraints in cognitive functioning, his or her capabilities which comprise social skills, communication skills, and self-care abilities.
The limitations may hamper the development of a child, he or she may learn slowly or may behave differently when compared to other developing children.
Intellectual disability causes constraints in an individual in two of the fundamental areas:
Intellectual functioning: Intelligence Quotient (IQ) or intellectual functioning are used interchangeably which reflects a person’s learning skill, reasoning skill, decision making skill, and problem-solving skills.
Adaptive behaviors: Some of the skills that are necessary for doing daily tasks are known as adaptive behaviors such as how an individual communicates with other people and taking care of oneself.
To measure adaptive behaviors in a child, a specialist observes the skills of a child, analyzes and compares them with other children of a similar age group. Three major areas of adaptive functioning are taken into consideration by the specialist which are conceptual, social, and practical.
- Conceptual functioning includes reading, writing, maths, knowledge, reasoning, and language
- Social functioning comprises skills required in communication, empathy, and capability to follow rules and regulations.
- Practical functioning embraces how a child is responding to personal care, responsibilities of assigned work, managing a budget, and organizing things at school.
Many things are under observation such as how is a child able to eat or dress himself, how is he able to interact with family, friends, or other relatives, how easily is he able to understand things, and then all effects are compared with children of the same age.
Low IQ levels have a severe impact on about 1% of the population, with 85% having a mild disability. This signifies that an individual will work slower than an average child in terms of learning and acquiring new skills. If some kind of support is given to such kinds of individuals who are suffering from mild deterioration in intellectual power, then they can earn a living for themselves.
Types of Intellectual Disabilities
Intellectual disability can be categorized into three categories including: mild, moderate, and severe. It is analyzed that mild disability is not seen until the child goes to school as then he or she will face challenges in academics. In some cases, some delay in learning a language or slower motor skills can also be attributed to early signs of disability, which can be identified at the age of two or three.
Generally, this kind of disability occurs in a child before he or she is 18 years old or in some cases before birth. However, there are some criteria set by the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities for an individual to prove that he or she suffers from a disability of thinking rationally which is as follows:
- The person’s IQ level is less than 70 to 75.
- The person shows vital constraints in two or more adaptive areas such as the ability to live, play, and work with other people like socializing capability, self-care, and communication skills.
- If the person suffers from the disability before he or she is 18 years of age.
Now, you must be wondering what are the essential causes of this kind of disability. Let’s give you a glimpse. Mental retardation or ID may be caused by various factors such as:
- If a person suffers from any sudden injury, disease, or maybe a problem in the brain.
There may be some children whose cause of ID is not known. Some of the major causes and types of intellectual disabilities are as follows:
- Down syndrome
- Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
- Birth defects
- Fragile X Syndrome
- Infection which happened before birth or at the time of birth or after birth as well
- Severe head injury
- Stroke
It has been estimated that 6.5 million people in America suffer from an intellectual disability. The statistics highlight that approx. 1 to 3 percent of the worldwide population suffers from low IQ levels and low adaptive functioning which are approx. 200 million people. It is huge. There is one more interesting fact about this disability and that it is that intellectual disabilities seem to be more common in countries with people having a low income.
There are some of the issues which occur with people having low rational power such as anxiety disorders, cerebral palsy, ADHD, depression, autism spectrum disorder which can turn out to be challenging. This requires an urgent need of medical diagnosis and proper treatment which can help an individual to live a happy and healthy life.
How Can A Lawyer Help for Intellectual Disability Benefits
Suppose an infant at the time of birth had an injury that led to an intellectual disability, then it causes the family members to face challenges throughout their lives.
This is because the family has to provide care and look out for the needs of their child. In some situations, there is a possibility that the child shows early signs of low rational ability while in other cases the child may not show any signs for many years.
It may happen that owing to medical negligence or malpractice by the doctors, a child has low IQ levels and low adaptive functioning. If this is the case then, the child is entitled to get compensation. In such cases, you should contact a disability lawyer who can help you in getting financial aid and how to proceed further in cases when the child suffers from an injury during birth.