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What should I know about developmental disabilities?

» Autism/Pervasive Developmental Disabilities - Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) are neurological disorders that affect a child's ability to communicate, understand language, play, and relate to others. Signs of autism or PDD usually appear before age three. Children with mild to severe forms may have:

• Problems with communication (that is, using and understanding language),
• Difficulty relating to people, objects and events,
• Hyperactivity,
• Unusual play with toys and other objects,
• Increased sensitivity to and difficulty adjusting to changes in environment, routine or familiar surroundings, and
• Repetitive, self-injurious, or aggressive behaviors.

»Cerebral Palsy is a group of conditions that result in limited or abnormal functioning in the parts of the brain that control movement. It is caused by brain damage that has usually occurred before, during or shortly after birth, generally because not enough oxygen or poor blood flow reaches the fetal or newborn brain. It may also result from an accident, lead poisoning, viral infection, child abuse or some similar trauma occurring early in life. The three main types of cerebral palsy, which may occur in any combination, include:

• Spastic - stiff and difficult movement,
• Athetoid - involuntary and uncontrolled movement, and
• Ataxic - disturbed sense of balance and depth perception.

Children with cerebral palsy may have:

• Difficulty with control and coordination of the body,
• Speech and language problems, and
• Social and emotional problems.

»Down Syndrome is a condition caused by a chromosome abnormality. The presence of forty-seven instead of the usual forty-six chromosomes in a cell interferes with the orderly development of the brain and body, resulting in mild to severe mental retardation and other characteristics. A child with Down Syndrome may have:

• poor muscle tone,
• Specific physical characteristics such as:
Distinctive facial characteristics including slanting eyes with folds of skin at the inner corners and flat ridge of the nose,
Small oral cavity,
Small head,
Short neck,
Short, low-set ears,
Hyperflexibility (excessive ability to extend the joints),
Short broad hands with a single crease across the palm,
Broad feet with short toes,

• Short, high-pitched cries in infancy,
• Specific health related problems, including:

Visual problems,
Mild to moderate hearing loss and speech difficulty,
Lowered resistance to infection,
Heart defects and gastrointestinal tract problems that can be surgically corrected,
Misalignment of the top two vertebrae of the neck that may make the child more prone to injury, and
Tendency to become obese as the child grows older.

»Epilepsy, a seizure disorder, is a physical condition that occurs when there is a sudden, brief change in how the brain works resulting for a short time in altered consciousness, movement, or actions. Epileptic seizures can be generalized, involving all brain cells, or partial, involving brain cells in one part of the brain. Generalized seizures may consist of a convulsion with complete loss of consciousness, or may look like a brief period of fixed staring. Partial seizures may be characterized by periods of "automatic behavior" and altered consciousness; the individual may exhibit purposeful looking behavior that is unconscious, may be repetitive, and is usually not recalled, such as buttoning or unbuttoning a shirt. Some symptoms that may indicate epilepsy include:

• "Blackouts" or periods of confused memory,
• Episodes of staring or unexplained periods of unresponsiveness,
• Involuntary movement of arms and legs,
• "Fainting spells" with incontinence or followed by excessive fatigue,
• Odd sounds, distorted perceptions, episodic feelings of fear that cannot be explained.

»Mental Retardation is a condition in which significantly below average general intellectual functioning is accompanied by deficits in adaptive behavior. These characteristics become apparent during early childhood and adversely affect the child's educational performance. Children with mental retardation generally score below average on intelligence tests, scoring sixty-nine or lower. They often experience difficulties in learning and communication, and in developing social and independent living skills. Mental retardation occurs before the age of twenty-one and falls into four levels:

• Mild retardation,
• Moderate retardation,
• Severe retardation, and
• Profound retardation.

Causes of mental retardation include chromosome abnormalities, biological factors such as lack of oxygen, and problems in fetal development resulting from maternal infections, blood incompatibilities and inappropriate drug use.

»Neurological Impairment includes a group of conditions that result from some form of dysfunction of the brain or central nervous system that limits a person's development, understanding, memory, attention span, fine motor control, use of language, or ability to adjust to new situations. Types of neurological impairments include:

• Childhood aphasia (difficulty using or understanding words),
• Minimal brain dysfunction, and
• Learning disability.

Children with neurological impairments may have:

• Difficulty in learning to read, write, spell or do math,
• Distractibility/short attention span,
• Impulsiveness,
• Lack of memory,
• Hyperactivity, and
• Immaturity.

Excerpts taken from:
Handbook for Families Adopting a Child with Developmental Disabilities, Families Together Adoption Project.
For a print copy check our publications section.

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