Six years ago I asserted in print, with some sense of daring, that it was time to admit that the term mental retardation was a myth, a " false and unhelpful categorization of people with very diverse needs and characteristics " (Smith, 2002, p. 64). I quoted from Thomas Ssasz's (1960) classic work, The Myth of Mental Illness, and described the term mental retardation as being " scientifically w...

Historical Perspective The plight of individuals with developmental disabilities has been dependent on the customs and beliefs of the era and the culture or locale. In ancient Greece and Rome, infanticide was a common practice. In Sparta, for example, neonates were examined by a state council of inspectors. If they suspected that the child was defective, the infant was thrown from a cliff to it...

The assessment of psychopathology in persons with mental retardation requires reliable and valid instruments. In the present study, the reliability of the Child Behavior Checklist was determined, using data of 42 children and youth with mild mental retardation, with ages from 10 to 18 years. Kappa coefficients and intra-class correlations were computed to determine the reliability at item level...

Objectives: The aim of the present article is to describe the clinical features and genetic conditions of the clinical syndromes/association characterized by facial dysmorphism, mental retardation, and aortic dilation, and compare with those of the syndromes with facial dysmorphism, mental retardation, and aortic stenosis. Methods: International literature of the syndromes characterized by faci...

One hundred and sixty six children attending educationally subnormal/mild (ESN/M) schools were karyotyped as part of a project investigating the aetiology of mild mental retardation. Nine had significant chromosome abnormalities. Five of six children identified during the survey had no dysmorphic features--47,XXY (two), 48,XXYY, 46,XX 15q-, and 46,XX,t(X;19). One dysmorphic boy had a balanced t...

spastic paraplegia 18 is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by motor dysfunction, joint contracture and mental retardation. we describe two families as three cases. case 1 is a 35-year-old woman with and spasticity and mild weakness in lower limbs. case 2 and 3 are a sister and brother aged six and two respectively. the older sister suffered from lower limb spasticity, equinovarus an...

the hereditary ataxias are a group of genetically defined neurological diseases which are characterized by heterogeneous clinical presentations. ataxia is defined as imbalance and lack of coordination. mental retardation associated with ataxia has been reported in some of the known and recently identified syndromes. in this review, we describe some known and novel genes that cause familial ment...