BACKGROUND Subtelomeric deletions of the long arm of chromosome 20 are rare, with only 11 described in the literature. Clinical features of individuals with these microdeletions include severe limb malformations, skeletal abnormalities, growth retardation, developmental and speech delay, mental retardation, seizures and mild, non-specific dysmorphic features. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We...

Children acquire mental state verbs (MSVs) much later than other, lower-frequency, words. One factor proposed to contribute to this delay is that children must learn various semantic and syntactic cues that draw attention to the difficult-to-observe mental content of a scene. We develop a novel computational approach that enables us to explore the role of such cues, and show that our model can ...

This study compared efficacy and efficiency of constant time delay and interspersal of known items to teach sight words to students with mild mental retardation and learning disabilities. Procedures were counterbalanced across time of day and instructional groups in a parallel treatments design. For students with mild mental retardation, constant time delay was more effective and efficient base...

A delay in speech development may be a symptom of many disorders, including mental retardation, hearing loss, an expressive language disorder, psychosocial deprivation, autism, elective mutism, receptive aphasia and cerebral palsy. Speech delay may be secondary to maturation delay or bilingualism. Being familiar with the factors to look for when taking the history and performing the physical ex...

Fragile sites /Chromosomal aberrations play a role in the etiology of mental retardation and other associated complications. Since Down syndrome is the most common genetic cause of mental retardation, the present study was done to evaluate the effect of fragile sites on sys-temic diseases and growth and developmental pattern among them. Human lymphocyte cell culture with folate free medium show...

Although the quality and effectiveness of mental health treatments and services have improved greatly over the past 50 years, therapeutic revolutions in psychiatry have not yet been able to reduce stigma. Stigma is a risk factor leading to negative mental health outcomes. It is responsible for treatment seeking delays and reduces the likelihood that a mentally ill patient will receive adequate ...

Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) is the commonest preventable cause of mental retardation in children worldwide. It continued to be a major health problem amongst Sudanese children. The lack of a screening programme in Sudan may be the major factor of missing the diagnosis in newborns with such a condition that can present very subtle clinically, yet with poor neurodevelopmental consequences. The...

This study compared the effects of occupational therapy, using a sensory integration (SI) approach and a control intervention of tabletop activities, on the frequency of self-stimulating behaviors in seven children 8-19 years of age with pervasive developmental delay and mental retardation. Daily 15-min videotape segments of the subjects were recorded before, immediately after, and 1 hour after...

Impatience for reward is a facet of many psychiatric disorders. We draw attention to a growing literature finding greater discounting of delayed reward, an important aspect of impatience, across a range of psychiatric disorders. We propose these findings are best understood by considering the goals and motivation for discounting future reward. We characterize these as arising from either the op...