Autism and Mental Retardation Essay Example for Free

Autism and Mental Retardation Essay Respond to the following: 1. List the primary features of autism. Extremely unresponsive, uncommunicative, repetitive, rigid, changing events that the child is use to doing on a daily basis can result in an outburst where he or she becomes angry and very confused, loud noises can cause an outburst as well for some 2. Which explanation for autism is no longer considered valid and lacks research support? The sociocultural view is no longer valid. It is now believed that cognitive limitations and brain abnormalities are more suitable explanations. 3. What forms of treatment are helpful for a person with autism? At this time there are no treatments that can reverse autism. Some treatments that are helpful would be behavioral therapy, communication training, parent training, and community integration. Psychotropic drugs and vitamins combined with other approaches are also quite helpful. 4. List the criteria for a diagnosis of mental retardation: People with mental retardation are well below average in both intelligence and adaptive abilities. A person with mental retardation has trouble with communicating, living at home, self-direction, and work/safety. 5. Explain one way in which sociocultural biases in testing might pose problems for assessing mental retardation. Sociocultural biases would be environmental conditions and social status. People may not understand that children from good backgrounds and stimulating environments can be mentally retarded. Most people think this is limited to lower social classes 6. Of the four levels of mental retardation, into which category do most people with mental retardation fall? The four levels of retardation are mild retardation, moderate retardation, severe retardation, and profound retardation, 85% of mentally retarded people have mild retardation. 7. What are the main types of biological causes of mental retardation? The primary causes of moderate, severe, and profound retardation are: biological,although people who function at these levels also are affected greatly by their family and social environment. Sometimes genetic factors are at the root of these  biological problems, in the form of chromosomal or metabolic disorders. Other biological causes of these kinds of mental retardation come from unfavorable conditions that occur before, during, or after birth, such as birth injuries. 8. What is the only way to prevent fetal alcohol syndrome? For the mother to not drink alcohol while pregnant 9. What are normalization and mainstreaming? Normalization: The principle that institutions and community residences should expose people with mental retardation to living conditions and opportunities similar to those found in the rest of society. Mainstreaming: The placement of children with mental retardation in regular school classes, also known as inclusion 10. What is your opinion about mainstreaming and normalization for children and adults with autism or mental retardation? My thoughts about mainstreaming for the children and adults with autism and mental retardation, I feel that it is not a good idea placing the children with mental retardation, they do need more supervision and attention, and for this reason if being in a regular class they would not get the attention and or supervision they need. I do feel that it is good to expose the children and adults into the society, they are not no different than anyone else.