The human brain is entrusted with the task of implementing cognitive functions. It is with their help that we are able to successfully work, study and live in this world. But, unfortunately, sometimes this function fails. This contributes to the appearance of signs of mental retardation in children, which are sometimes diagnosed already in babies up to a year of age. Such a phenomenon often prevents a person from existing normally in this world.
Inadequate intellectual or psycho-emotional development of a child often becomes the cause of his disability, which is difficult not only for himself, but also for his relatives and friends.
Knowing the signs of mental retardation in children will allow the parent to seek medical help in a timely manner and start the difficult path as soon as possible aimed at the rehabilitation of the little patient and his adaptation in society.
Types of pathology
Mental retardation is a condition when the patient suffers from all cognitive functions and there is a mental inferiority that does not allow the child to adapt socially on an equal basis with his peers.
Determining the degree of this pathology is necessary not only for diagnostic purposes, but also for prognostic purposes. That is why modern medicine uses a unified scale that allows you to assess intelligence (IQ), which allows you to identify the degree of pathology and express it with the help of points. The results are distributed as follows:
- up to 20 points - they talk about a very severe lag in the development of the child;
- 20-34 - about a severe degree;
- 35 to 49 indicates a moderate degree of intellectual retardation;
- From 50 points to 69 indicate a slight degree of lagging behind peers.
In addition, the child's behavior is assessed and associated mental disorders are identified. The results of such examinations will determine either the patient's ability to adapt to society, or indications for specialized treatment, recommendations for ongoing care.
Previously, there was a slightly different scale by which intelligence was assessed. She suggested the use of such terms as oligophrenia and debility, as well as imbecility. This or that degree characteristic of mental retardation also depended on IQ. However, the old rating scale is notreflected the whole spectrum of variants of such a phenomenon. With its help, it was possible only partially to indicate the degree of combination of mental disorders occurring against the background of a decrease in intelligence.
Forms of pathology
Signs of mental retardation in children may indicate congenital or acquired variants of developmental delay. The first of them take place in connection with hereditary syndromes, and also manifest themselves due to various genetic mutations that have occurred in the cells of the embryo. Also, congenital pathology occurs in connection with the intake of various toxins into the mother's body. These can be poisons, drugs, alcohol, etc.
There is also acquired dementia. Sometimes it occurs as a result of trauma to the skull, as well as transferred encephalitis and meningitis.
Severe hemolytic disease also contributes to the occurrence of mental retardation. It is typical for newborns due to Rh conflict and other similar forms of influence on the body of the fetus and mother.
Main stages of development
In the life of a child, teachers and psychologists distinguish certain periods that are characterized by noticeable qualitative changes in the body.
Human development occurs in leaps and bounds in the transition from one stage to another. Based on traditional periodization, they distinguish:
- Infancy. This is the period from birth itself, which lasts until the year of life.
- Preschool childhood. This stage starts after a year and lasts up to 3 years.
- Preschoolchildhood. This period takes place from 3 years to 7.
- The age of the primary school student is 7-11 years old.
- Average (teenage) school period - 12-15 years.
- Senior (youthful) school stage - 15-18 years old.
Let's consider the signs of mental retardation in children at the initial stages of their development.
Infancy
It is simply impossible to detect signs of mental retardation in children under one year old, if they are mild. After all, such children do not yet have speech skills and it is impossible to determine the degree of development of thinking, memory, etc. The baby is a helpless creature and is unable to satisfy any, even basic needs. His life is completely dependent on an adult who feeds him, moves him in space and even turns him from side to side.
However, there are some external signs of mental retardation in children that can be detected immediately after they are born. They occur with a severe degree of violations. Among them:
- abnormal structure of the body, face and head;
- presence of pathologies of internal organs;
- symptoms of phenylketonuria, which are pale skin of an infant, sour urine and body odor, lethargy, unnatural color of light blue eyes, muscle weakness, convulsions, and the absence of the most basic reactions.
If the above external signs of mental retardation in children are not observed, doctors determine the pathology according to the mental and emotional development of the child, according tohis reactions to people and surrounding objects.
What are the signs of mental retardation in children under one year old? In many young patients, there is a delay in the development of upright posture. Such babies, much later than their peers, begin to hold their heads, sit, stand on their legs and walk. Such a delay is sometimes quite significant and lasts up to 2 years.
Symptoms of oligophrenia (mental retardation) in infants are also expressed in general pathological inertia, indifference, and reduced interest in the outside world. At the same time, loudness and irritability are not ruled out.
Children under one year of age who suffer from mental retardation later acquire a need for emotional communication with adults. They have no interest in toys hanging over the crib or those shown to them by an adult. Such babies also lack a gestural form of communication.
Children with mental retardation, up to a year of life, cannot distinguish between "us" and "them". They do not have an active grasp reflex. The formation of visual-motor coordination does not occur in such patients. In addition, there is an underdevelopment of hearing and articulation apparatus. All this leads to the fact that mentally retarded babies do not begin to babble and babble in a timely manner.
Mental and motor development of children at an early age
If in the first periods of life the lag in the development of the psyche and nervous system in children with mental retardation is from 2 to 3 weeks, then in the future this figure grows literally like a snowball. And signsof mental retardation in children 4 years old already show them lagging behind the norm by 1, 5 and even 2 years.
The main achievement of babies at an early age is the mastery of walking, objective activities and speech skills. But this happens in children with the normal development of the body. After a year of life, he althy children will certainly begin to walk.
Some babies with mental retardation are no different from their peers in terms of the development of upright posture. However, they start walking quite late. Sometimes this does not happen until 3 years. Symptoms of oligophrenia in children (mental retardation) are also expressed in the movements of babies. They can be observed clumsy gait, unsteadiness, slowness or, conversely, impulsiveness.
There is also no genuine familiarization with the objects of the surrounding world in children under the age of 3 years. In this case, the so-called "field behavior" is a sign of mental retardation in a child. The kid picks up everything that is in his field of vision, immediately throws these things, not showing any interest in their purpose and properties.
With normal development, the emergence and development of objective activity occurs in children under 2 years old. Signs of mental retardation in babies of this age are in its absence. They are not interested in toys (they don't even pick them up).
Signs of mental retardation in children 2 years old can also be seen in the case when children carry out some manipulations with objects. However, when performing certain actions, the baby does not at all take into account the purpose of things and theirproperties.
Speech Development
What are the signs of mental retardation in a 3 year old? He has no prerequisites for the development of speech. They will form only in children 4 years old. At the same time, signs of mental retardation also lie in the violation of the connection between word and deed. Manipulations of the child are sometimes insufficiently conscious. At the same time, the experience of a small patient regarding actions is not generalized and is not fixed in words.
By the time speech becomes an active means of communication in normally developing children, it is in an undeveloped state in children with pathology. The first words appear in them only in the interval from 2.5 years to 5.
Primary school students with MA are almost never the initiators of the dialogue. Experts attribute this fact to their underdeveloped speech and a narrow range of motives and interests. Such students do not know how to fully listen to the question and are not always able to answer it. In some cases, they are simply silent, while in others they try to answer something, but they do it inappropriately. A sign of mild mental retardation in children is speech delay. This is expressed in stuttering, nasality or dumbness. A moderate degree of MA is characterized by a poor vocabulary and tongue-tied speech. The development of the child's speech in this case occurs with a delay of 3-5 years.
The severe stage of mental retardation is represented by a violation of the structure of words. In such children, speech is underdeveloped, they use inarticulate sounds and gestures. Only inarticulate sounds are emitted by patients who are diagnosed with a deep degree of VR.
Preschool
According to experts, the turning point for the development of a small patient with mental retardation is the fifth year of his life. This is the age when he begins to show interest in the objects around him, getting the simplest ideas about their properties.
In the presence of signs of mental retardation in children at the age of 6, the visual-effective (subject-practical) type of thinking continues to be dominant. Such preschoolers cannot carry out productive activities in the form of drawing and working with a designer without psychological and pedagogical classes specially organized for them. Only by the end of this period do children begin to develop self-service skills. At the same time, there are often cases when small patients cannot fully understand the logic and sequence of their actions.
Role of play
Psychologists have noted some general patterns in the development of normal and abnormal preschoolers. So, in the life of a small patient with mental retardation, as well as in his peers, there is always an "age of games".
For a preschooler, such an activity should become a leader. In this case, the development of the psychological foundation of a small person will be ensured. Until the age of 5, a child with VR takes toys in his hands only to perform elementary manipulations with them. After this age, he begins to develop procedural actions. Nevertheless, in the game there is a formality of actions, stereotyping, there are no elements of the plot andintent.
Perception and feeling
Primary school students suffering from mental retardation spend much longer than their peers looking at and recognizing a familiar object. This is due to their slow visual perception. This feature has a direct impact on the orientation of children with SD in space and on their learning to read.
The perception of such patients is undifferentiated. Looking at a certain object, children see only general features in it and do not notice specific features. It is especially difficult for them to actively adapt their perception to changing conditions. They cannot recognize reversed images of objects, mistaking them for others.
Signs of a mild stage of mental retardation in children are expressed in difficulty in orienting and narrowing the scope of visual perception. Moderate development of MR is characterized by a lag in tactile, auditory and visual analyzers with a simultaneous anomaly of hearing and vision. Such a child cannot independently navigate the current situation.
In the case of a severe degree of UO, superficial perception and a satisfactory definition of surrounding objects are characteristic. In the presence of a deep degree of SD, the development of the child's psyche is noted at the lowest level. These children find it difficult to navigate and do not distinguish between edible and non-edible items.
Attention and memory
The processes of preserving, memorizing, processing and reproducing various information by mentally retarded children have their own characteristics. So,the attention of such students is directly related to their performance. Compared to their peers, children with MR remember much less educational material. At the same time, a rather low accuracy of the acquired knowledge is noted.
Children with mental retardation have difficulty remembering texts. The fact is that it is difficult for them to divide the material into paragraphs, to isolate the main idea from it, to establish semantic connections, and also to determine the supporting expressions and words. The result of all this is that such students retain only a small part of the proposed material in their memory.
Primary students remember text best from the teacher's voice. To a greater extent, they still have the habit of focusing on oral speech. Most students with LR master the technique of reading at about 10 years of age. Signs of mental retardation in children are the pronunciation of material intended for memorization aloud. With simultaneous auditory and visual perception, the necessary information is easier to fix in the child's memory.
Mild SV in schoolchildren is characterized by a reduced amount of attention and its instability, deterioration in concentration and rapid forgetting. Children with a moderate degree of MR have insufficiently developed memory. They have impairments in voluntary memorization. Signs of a severe degree of MR are poor attention and a small amount of memory. In the case of a deep degree of SR, children are not able to remember the material offered to them, because their memory and attention are undeveloped.
Thinking
Thisthe function is carried out with the help of mental operations, namely synthesis and analysis, classification and generalization, comparison and abstraction. A sign of mental retardation of younger schoolchildren is the insufficient development of all levels in their mental activity. They find it difficult to solve even the simplest practical problems. An example is the combination of a picture of a familiar object, cut into 2 or 3 parts, as well as the selection of a geometric figure that is identical in size and shape to this one.
Even more difficult for primary school children with mental retardation are tasks in which it is necessary to show visual-figurative or verbal-logical thinking. The material is perceived by these students in a simplified way. At the same time, children miss a lot, change the sequence of logical links and are not able to establish relationships between them.
The course of thought processes is very peculiar in younger students with EE. Their analysis of the visual perception of a familiar object is characterized by fragmentation and poverty. It becomes more complete only when an adult helps such children with their questions.
Characteristic signs of a mild degree of SD are a limitation in the ability to think abstractly. But at the same time, relatively good figurative-visual thinking is revealed. A symptom of a moderate degree of SR is the lack of generalization, rote memorization and misunderstanding of the hidden meaning in the information. A severe degree of MR is manifested by unsystematic,randomness or complete absence of semantic connections. The deep degree of development of pathology is marked by the absence of elementary thought processes.
