Mental Retardation Symptoms

Mental retardation is a condition in which a person has below-average general intellectual function and has difficulties in learning basic skills necessary for daily living. It is diagnosed before age 18. Approximately, 1-3% of human population has mental retardation. In majority of such cases, the abnormality exists for the entire life. Anyone, irrespective of age and gender, may become a victim of mental retardation. It can be caused by a wide variety of factors such as congenital disorders, chromosomal abnormalities, genetic defects, malnutrition, toxins, trauma and inherited metabolic disorders. Mental retardation symptoms are quite prominent and are easily noticeable. Following are the most commonly observed symptoms of mental retardation.

Mental retardation is basically grouped into four types. These are mild, moderate, severe and very severe or profound. A person diagnosed to be suffering from mild mental retardation scores between 50-70 on the standardized intelligence quotient (IQ) test. The IQ score for the person having moderate mental retardation lies between 35-50. In case of severe mental retardation, the patient scores between 20-40 on the IQ test. There can be some unfortunate cases where the IQ score is in the range of 20-25. Such a case is known as profound mental retardation.

List of Mental Retardation Signs and Symptoms
Here's a list of symptoms indicating red flags for mental health.

Symptoms of Mild Mental Retardation
The symptoms of moderate mental retardation in children often go neglected till he enters an educational setup. Other symptoms of mild mental retardation are learning difficulties and poor social skills. Such a child can reach the educational plateau up to grade 6. Beyond this, his educational attainment is very difficult or impossible. With age till adulthood, he may learn enough job skills and life skills to carry forward his life on his own.

Moderate Mental Retardation Symptoms
Children with mild mental retardation reach developmental milestones a bit later than their peers do. These are the earliest observed symptoms of mental retardation in infants. Such a child faces difficulty in learning basic communication, social and operational, academic skills. He lacks the ability to retain information and remember things. This makes him unable to learn even simple life skills. Such a child lacks curiosity, logical thinking and problem solving capability. He needs constant supervision and care for survival. Till adulthood, such a person can achieve self-support.

Symptoms of Severe Mental Retardation
A person with severe mental retardation shows all the above mentioned symptoms of mild and severe type to a much greater degree since childhood. In addition to these, such a person shows aggressiveness and self injury. In a majority of the cases of severe mental retardation, the child is not able to learn the basic life skills. He needs another person's nursing, supervision and care throughout his entire life.

Symptoms of Profound Mental Retardation
Profound mental retardation in children is observed right from infancy.There is no muscle coordination seen in the infant. He is not able to reach developmental milestones like talking, walking, crawling, sitting up, etc as expected with age and growth. However, with age, though he may learn some basic skills of self care, he requires constant care and supervision throughout his life.

Symptoms of mental retardation are the indications of mental abnormalities. A doctor confirms the condition with the help of a number of diagnostic tests and exams. Generally, if the Denver developmental screening test shows the adaptive behavior score to be below average and the intelligence quotient (IQ) score below 70, mental retardation is confirmed (degrees or stages depend on the actual results).