A List Of Developmental Disabilities

Developmental disabilities can be occurring from the time of beginning through an extended period of rapid brain growth and development during pregnancy, infancy, and childhood. The developmental disabilities may have their early on sets in the genetic makeup of the parents, in the nutritional status of the mother throughout her life cycle, in psychic or maternal health conditions and environmental exposure during pregnancy, or in an early or abnormal birth process. The developmental disabilities may be the consequence of adaptation difficulties soon after birth; poor nutrition, infections, and injuries in infancy and childhood; or the complex and pervasive effects of adverse social and environmental conditions in impoverished communities.

Population-based occurrences of developmental disability data on cognitive disabilities are sparse in developing countries. Severe psychic condition of mental retardation or MR, defined as a decreased general intelligence quotient of less than or equal to 55, accompanied by major limitations in adaptive ability, is consistently found to be in the range of 3 to 5 per 1,000 persons in the developed countries. The failure to diagnose the specific biological cause in most of these disabled children suggests that many cognitive disabilities may have their origins in maternal and infant malnutrition and impoverished environments, which have pervasive adverse effects on physical growth and psychological development.

No actual information could be found that reported population-based prevalence estimates for motor disabilities or its subtypes in many places. There is an urgent and obvious need for studies to document independent prevalence rates for motor disabilities, given its common connection with severe cognitive disabilities and the observation from studies elsewhere that it is an important and common functional limitation in children with developmental disabilities.

There are estimated to be around 1.5 million people with vision disorder worldwide. Several surveys have estimated that nearly 47 percent of blindness or severe visual disability in developing countries is preventable or curable. Quite inconsistent rates of visual disability might be expected in countries at different stages in the health transition. A recent study on the prevalence of blindness in the schools for the blind supports this view. Nearly 39 percent of causes of severe optical disability or blindness were found to be preventable, only 5 percent of the affected children had conditions amenable to primary preventive measures, such as measles or vitamin A deficiency. Almost a quarter of the people around 23 percent had intrauterine infections, inherited conditions, or retinopathies of prematurely; the majority of these problems were potentially preventable through genetic counseling and improved antenatal and neonatal care.

A hearing disability is usually defined as a disorder in one or more of the basic mental processes involved in understanding or in using language, written or spoken, resulting in an imperfect ability to listen, speak, think, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations. The definition of hearing disorder specifically excludes learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities and those resulting from mental retardation or emotional disturbance. In most of the cases it may be difficult to distinguish between traditional learning disabilities and the consequences of adverse environmental and social conditions.

• Felicia Byrnes
• 30/01/2009, 10:59 AM
• 0 Comments