Symptoms of mental retardation in children 4 years old. Special child – special approach. Does EEG show mental retardation?

The site provides background information for informational purposes only. Diagnosis and treatment of diseases must be carried out under the supervision of a specialist. All drugs have contraindications. Consultation with a specialist is required!

Treatment and correction of mental retardation ( how to treat oligophrenia?)

Is it possible to cure mental retardation? remove the diagnosis of mental retardation)?

At the same time, children with mild form diseases respond well to treatment and corrective measures, as a result of which they can receive a minimum education, learn self-care skills, and even get a simple job.

It is also worth noting that in some cases the goal of treatment is not to cure mental retardation as such, but to eliminate its cause, which will prevent the progression of the disease. Such treatment should be carried out immediately after identifying a risk factor ( for example, when examining the mother before, during or after childbirth), since the longer causative factor will affect the baby’s body, the more profound disorders of thinking he may develop in the future.

Treatment for the cause of mental retardation can be carried out:

• For congenital infections– for syphilis, cytomegalovirus infection, rubella and other infections, antiviral and antibacterial drugs can be prescribed.
• At diabetes mellitus at the mother's.
• For metabolic disorders– for example, with phenylketonuria ( violation of the metabolism of the amino acid phenylalanine in the body) eliminating foods containing phenylalanine from your diet may help solve the problem.
• For hydrocephalus – surgery immediately after identifying pathology can prevent the development of mental retardation.

Finger gymnastics for the development of fine motor skills

Finger gymnastics may include:

• Exercise 1 (counting fingers). Suitable for children with mild mental retardation who are learning to count. First you need to fold your hand into a fist, and then straighten 1 finger at a time and count them ( aloud). Then you need to bend your fingers back, also counting them.
• Exercise 2. First, the child should spread the fingers of both palms and place them in front of each other so that only the pads of the fingers touch each other. Then he needs to bring his palms together ( so that they also touch), and then return to the starting position.
• Exercise 3. During this exercise, the child should clasp his hands, while at first there should be a thumb one hand, and then the thumb of the other hand.
• Exercise 4. First, the child should spread his fingers, and then bring them together so that the tips of all five fingers are gathered at one point. The exercise can be repeated many times.
• Exercise 5. During this exercise, the child needs to clench his hands into fists, and then straighten his fingers and spread them, repeating these actions several times.

Medicines ( drugs, tablets) with mental retardation ( nootropics, vitamins, antipsychotics)

Drug treatment of mental retardation

Objectives of massage for mental retardation

The objectives of massage for mental retardation are:

• Improving blood microcirculation in the massaged tissues, which will improve the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to nerve cells brain.
• Improved lymphatic drainage, which will improve the process of removing toxins and metabolic byproducts from brain tissue.
• Improving microcirculation in the muscles, which helps to increase their tone.
• Stimulates nerve endings in the fingers and palms, which can help develop fine motor skills in the hands.
• Creation of positive emotions that have a beneficial effect on the general condition of the patient.

The influence of music on children with mental retardation

Music lessons allow you to:

• Develop the child’s speech apparatus (while singing songs). In particular, children improve their pronunciation of individual letters, syllables and words.
• Develop a child's hearing. In the process of listening to music or singing, the patient learns to distinguish sounds by their tonality.
• Develop intellectual abilities. To sing a song, a child needs to perform several sequential actions at once ( take a deep breath before the next verse, wait for the right melody, choose the right voice volume and singing speed). All this stimulates the thought processes that are disturbed in children with mental retardation.
• Develop cognitive activity. In the process of listening to music, a child can learn new musical instruments, evaluate and remember the nature of their sound, and then recognize ( determine) them by sound alone.
• Teach your child to play musical instruments. This is possible only with a mild form of oligophrenia.

Education of persons with mental retardation

Regular and correctional schools, boarding schools and classes for schoolchildren with mental retardation ( PMPC recommendations)

Education for mentally retarded children can be carried out:

• IN secondary schools. This method is suitable for children with mild mental retardation. In some cases, mentally retarded children can successfully complete the first 1–2 grades of school, and no differences between them and ordinary children will be noticeable. At the same time, it is worth noting that as children grow older and the school curriculum becomes more difficult, they will begin to lag behind their peers in academic performance, which can cause certain difficulties ( low mood, fear of failure, etc.).
• In correctional schools or boarding schools for mentally retarded persons. A special school for children with mental retardation has both its pros and cons. On the one hand, educating a child in a boarding school allows him to receive much more attention from teachers than when he attends a regular school. In the boarding school, teachers and educators are trained to work with such children, as a result of which it is easier to establish contact with them, find an individual approach to them in teaching, and so on. The main disadvantage of such training is the social isolation of the sick child, who practically does not communicate with normal people ( healthy) children. Moreover, during their stay in the boarding school, children are constantly monitored and carefully cared for, to which they become accustomed. After graduating from boarding school, they may simply be unprepared for life in society, as a result of which they will need constant care for the rest of their lives.
• In special correctional schools or classes. Some general education schools have classes for mentally retarded children, in which they are taught a simplified school curriculum. This allows children to receive the necessary minimum knowledge, as well as to be among “normal” peers, which contributes to their integration into society in the future. This teaching method is suitable only for patients with mild mental retardation.

During the PMP examination, the child may be asked:

• What's his name?
• How old is he?
• Where does he live?
• How many people are in his family ( may be asked to briefly describe each family member)?
• Are there any pets at home?
• What games does your child like?
• What dishes does he prefer for breakfast, lunch or dinner?
• Can the child sing? they may be asked to sing a song or recite a short rhyme)?

Federal State Educational Standard OVZ ( federal state educational standard

FSES OVZ is a federal state educational standard for students with disabilities. It regulates the educational process for children and adolescents with various physical or mental disabilities, including mentally retarded patients.

Adapted basic general education programs ( AOOP) for preschoolers and schoolchildren with mental retardation

The main objectives of the AOOP for children with mental retardation are:

• Creation of conditions for the education of mentally retarded children in general education schools, as well as in special boarding schools.
• Creating similar educational programs for children with mental retardation who could master these programs.
• Creation of educational programs for mentally retarded children to receive preschool and general education.
• Development of special programs for children with various degrees oligophrenia.
• Organization of the educational process taking into account the behavioral and mental characteristics of children with varying degrees of mental retardation.
• Quality control of educational programs.
• Monitoring the assimilation of information by students.

• Maximize development mental abilities each individual child with mental retardation.
• Teach mentally retarded children self-care ( if possible), performing simple work and other necessary skills.
• Teach children to behave correctly in society and interact with it.
• Develop students' interest in learning.
• Eliminate or smooth out shortcomings and defects that a mentally retarded child may have.
• Teach parents of a mentally retarded child to behave correctly with him and so on.

Work programs for children with mental retardation

For example, a work program for children with a mild form of mental retardation may include training in self-care, reading, writing, mathematics, and so on. At the same time, children with a severe form of the disease are not able to read, write and count in principle, as a result of which their work programs will include only general self-care skills, training in emotion control and other simple activities.

Corrective classes for mental retardation

The goals of correctional classes are:

• Teaching your child basic school skills- reading, writing, simple counting.
• Teaching children how to behave in society– Group classes are used for this.
• Speech development– especially in children who have impaired pronunciation of sounds or other similar defects.
• Teach your child to look after himself– at the same time, the teacher should focus on the dangers and risks that may await the child in everyday life ( for example, the child must learn that there is no need to grab hot or sharp objects, as this will hurt).
• Develop attention and perseverance– especially important for children with impaired ability to concentrate.
• Teach your child to control their emotions– especially if he has attacks of anger or rage.
• Develop fine motor skills of hands- if it is broken.
• Develop memory– learn words, phrases, sentences or even poems.

CIPRs for children with mental retardation

To develop a CIPR, a child must undergo full examination from many specialists ( from a psychiatrist, psychologist, neurologist, speech therapist, etc.). During the examination, doctors will identify dysfunctions of various organs ( for example, memory impairment, fine motor skills, difficulty concentrating) and evaluate their severity. Based on the data obtained, a CIPR will be drawn up, designed to correct, first of all, those violations that are most pronounced in the child.

So, for example, if a child with mental retardation has problems with speech, hearing and concentration, but there are no motor disorders, there is no point in prescribing him many hours of classes to improve fine motor skills. In this case, classes with a speech therapist should come to the fore ( to improve the pronunciation of sounds and words), classes to improve the ability to concentrate, and so on. At the same time, there is no point in wasting time teaching a child with severe mental retardation to read or write, since he will still not master these skills.

Methods of teaching literacy ( reading) children with mental retardation

Teaching reading to mentally retarded children allows:

• Teach your child to recognize letters, words and sentences.
• Learn to read expressively ( with intonation).
• Learn to understand the meaning of the text you read.
• Develop speech ( while reading aloud).
• Create the prerequisites for teaching writing.

Teaching writing

It is extremely important that before starting school, the child learns to read at least to a minimal extent. After this, he should be taught to draw simple geometric shapes (circles, rectangles, squares, straight lines and so on). When he masters this, you can move on to writing letters and memorizing them. Then you can start writing words and sentences.

It is worth noting that for a mentally retarded child, the difficulty lies not only in mastering writing, but also in understanding the meaning of what is written. At the same time, some children have a pronounced impairment of fine motor skills, which prevents them from mastering writing. In this case, it is recommended to combine grammar teaching with corrective exercises that allow the development of motor activity in the fingers.

Mathematics for children with mental retardation

Children with mild mental retardation may:

• Count natural numbers.
• Learn the concepts of “fraction”, “proportion”, “area” and others.
• Master the basic units of measurement of mass, length, speed and learn to apply them in everyday life.
• Learn to shop, calculate the cost of several items at once and the amount of change required.
• Learn to use measuring and counting instruments ( ruler, compass, calculator, abacus, clock, scales).

Pictograms for children with mental retardation

The essence of the pictogram technique is to associate a certain image in the child ( picture) with any specific action. For example, a picture of a toilet can be associated with the desire to go to the toilet. At the same time, a picture depicting a bath or shower can be associated with water procedures. In the future, these pictures can be attached to the doors of the corresponding rooms, as a result of which the child will better navigate the house ( if he wants to go to the toilet, he will independently find the door through which he needs to enter for this).

On the other hand, pictograms can also be used to communicate with a child. So, for example, in the kitchen you can keep pictures of a cup ( jug) with water, plates of food, fruits and vegetables. When a child feels thirsty, he can point to water, while pointing at a picture of food will help others understand that the child is hungry.

The above were just some examples of the use of pictograms, but using this technique you can teach a mentally retarded child a wide variety of activities ( brush your teeth in the morning, make and spread your bed yourself, fold things, etc.). However, it is worth noting that this technique will be most effective for mild mental retardation and only partially effective for moderate degrees of the disease. At the same time, children with severe and profound mental retardation are practically not amenable to learning using pictograms ( due to a complete lack of associative thinking).

Extracurricular activities for children with mental retardation

The goals of extracurricular activities can be:

• adaptation of the child in society;
• application of acquired skills and knowledge in practice;
• speech development;
• physical ( sports) child development;
• development of logical thinking;
• developing the ability to navigate in unfamiliar areas;
• psycho-emotional development of the child;
• the child’s acquisition of new experiences;
• development creativity (for example, while hiking, playing in the park, in the forest, etc.).

Homeschooling children with mental retardation

On the one hand, this teaching method has its advantages, since the child receives much more attention than when teaching in groups ( classes). At the same time, during the learning process, the child does not have contact with peers, does not acquire the communication and behavior skills he needs, as a result of which in the future it will be much more difficult for him to integrate into society and become a part of it. Therefore, teaching mentally retarded children exclusively at home is not recommended. It is best to combine both methods when the child visits during the day educational institution, and after lunch his parents study with him at home.

Rehabilitation and socialization of children with mental retardation

Classes with a psychologist ( psychocorrection)

Psychocorrection may include:

• psychological education of the child;
• help in realizing your “I”;
• social education ( teaching rules and norms of behavior in society);
• assistance in experiencing psycho-emotional trauma;
• creation of favorable ( friendly) family situation;
• improving communication skills;
• teaching a child to control emotions;
• learning skills to overcome difficult life situations and problems.

Speech therapy classes ( with a speech pathologist)

Classes with a speech therapist allow you to:

• Teach children to pronounce sounds and words correctly. To do this, the speech therapist uses various exercises, during which children have to repeatedly repeat those sounds and letters that they pronounce worst of all.
• Teach your child to form sentences correctly. This is also achieved through sessions during which the speech therapist communicates with the child orally or in writing.
• Improve your child's performance in school. Speech underdevelopment can be the cause of poor performance in many subjects.
• Stimulate general development child. While learning to speak and pronounce words correctly, the child simultaneously remembers new information.
• Improve the child's position in society. If a student learns to speak correctly and correctly, it will be easier for him to communicate with classmates and make friends.
• Develop the child's ability to concentrate. During classes, the speech therapist may have the child read aloud increasingly longer texts, which will require longer concentration of attention.
• Expand your child's vocabulary.
• Improve understanding of spoken and written language.
• Develop abstract thinking and imagination of the child. To do this, the doctor may give the child books with fairy tales or fictional stories to read aloud, and then discuss the plot with him.

Didactic games for children with mental retardation

For educational purposes you can use:

• Games with pictures- children are offered a set of pictures and asked to choose from them animals, cars, birds, and so on.
• Games with numbers– if the child already knows how to count in various objects ( for blocks, books or toys) you can stick the numbers from 1 to 10 and mix them up, and then ask the child to put them in order.
• Games with animal sounds– the child is shown a series of pictures with images of animals and asked to demonstrate what sounds each of them makes.
• Games that promote the development of fine motor skills– you can draw letters on small cubes, and then ask the child to assemble a word from them ( name of animal, bird, city, etc.).

Exercises and physical therapy ( Exercise therapy) for children with mental retardation

The goals of exercise therapy for oligophrenia may be:

• Development of fine motor skills of the hands. Since this disorder is most common in mentally retarded children, exercises to correct it should be included in every training program. Some of the exercises include clenching and unclenching your hands into fists, spreading and closing your fingers, touching your fingertips to each other, alternately bending and straightening each finger separately, and so on.
• Correction of spinal deformities. This violation occurs in children with severe mental retardation. To correct it, exercises are used that develop the muscles of the back and abdomen, joints of the spine, water procedures, exercises on the horizontal bar and others.
• Correction of movement disorders. If a child has paresis ( in which he weakly moves his arms or legs), exercises should be aimed at developing the affected limbs ( flexion and extension of arms and legs, rotational movements of them, and so on).
• Development of movement coordination. To do this, you can perform exercises such as jumping on one leg, long jumps ( after the jump, the child must maintain balance and remain on his feet), throwing a ball.
• Development of mental functions. To do this, you can perform exercises consisting of several successive parts ( for example, put your hands on your belt, then sit down, stretch your arms forward, and then do the same in reverse order).

To play sports, mentally retarded children are recommended to:

• Swimming. This helps them learn to solve complex sequential problems ( come to the pool, change clothes, wash, swim, wash and get dressed again), and also forms a normal attitude towards water and water procedures.
• Skiing. Develop motor activity and the ability to coordinate the movements of arms and legs.
• Biking. Helps develop balance, concentration and the ability to quickly switch from one task to another.
• Trips ( tourism). A change of environment stimulates the development of cognitive activity in a mentally retarded patient. At the same time, when traveling there is physical development and strengthening the body.

Recommendations for parents regarding the labor education of children with mental retardation

The development of work activity in a child with mental retardation may include:

• Self-care training– the child needs to be taught to dress independently, observe personal hygiene rules, take care of his appearance, eat food, and so on.
• Training for feasible work– from an early age, children can independently lay out things, sweep the street, vacuum, feed pets or clean up after them.
• Teamwork training– if parents go to do some simple work ( for example, picking mushrooms or apples, watering the garden), the child should be taken with you, explaining and clearly demonstrating to him all the nuances of the work being performed, as well as actively cooperating with him ( for example, instruct him to fetch water while watering the garden).
• Versatile training- parents should teach their child the most different types labor ( even if at first he is unable to do any work).
• The child’s awareness of the benefits of his work– parents should explain to the child that after watering the garden, vegetables and fruits will grow there, which the child can then eat.

Prognosis for mental retardation

Is a child given a disability group for mental retardation?

Children with mental retardation may be assigned:

• 3 disability group. Issued to children with mild mental retardation who can take care of themselves, are amenable to learning and can attend regular schools, but require increased attention from the family, others and teachers.
• Disability group 2. Issued to children with moderate mental retardation who are forced to attend special correctional schools. They are difficult to train, do not get along well in society, have little control over their actions and cannot be responsible for some of them, and therefore often need constant care, as well as the creation of special living conditions.
• 1st disability group. Issued to children with severe and profound mental retardation, who are practically unable to learn or care for themselves, and therefore require continuous care and guardianship.

Life expectancy of children and adults with oligophrenia

Healthy ( physically) people with mild mental retardation can take care of themselves, are easy to train, and can even get a job, earning money to feed themselves. In this regard, their average life expectancy and causes of death are practically no different from those among healthy people. The same can be said about patients with moderate mental retardation, who, however, are also trainable.

At the same time, patients with severe forms of the disease live much shorter than ordinary people. First of all, this may be due to multiple defects and congenital developmental anomalies, which can lead to the death of children during the first years of life. Another reason for premature death may be a person’s inability to critically evaluate his actions and the environment. In this case, patients may be in dangerous proximity to fire, operating electrical appliances or poisons, or fall into the pool ( while not knowing how to swim), get hit by a car ( accidentally running out onto the road) and so on. That is why the duration and quality of their lives directly depend on the attention from others.

Mild mental retardation in children is a congenital or acquired in early childhood condition of mental retardation or underdevelopment, the central defect of which is a decrease in intellectual functions.

Causes of mild mental retardation in children

The cause of any mental retardation is damage to the brain. The most severe structural defects manifest themselves in underdevelopment of the brain.

The main reasons causing the development of mental retardation in children can be grouped into the following groups:

• Heredity (gene and chromosomal diseases). This group includes: various syndromes (for example, Down, Turner); forms associated with hereditary disorders metabolic processes, neurological diseases;
• Impact harmful factors during intrauterine development: intrauterine infections(for example, rubella, toxoplasmosis, etc.), intoxication (alcohol intake, substances toxic to the fetus), hemolytic disease fetus, etc.;
• Factors whose influence took place during childbirth or during early age(birth injuries, oxygen deprivation, injuries, infections);
• Pedagogical neglect, which arises against the background of full-fledged brain function, but in the absence of full-fledged education and socialization;
• The presence of several causes at once, mixed conditions.

Mental retardation in children under 3 years of age, symptoms andpsychological characteristics of children with mental retardation

The diagnosis of mental retardation in children can be officially made no earlier than 7 years of age. However, it is important to understand that there is mild symptoms mental retardation in children, by which one can suspect its presence in early childhood, up to 3 years.

Mild mental retardation in children, signs:

• The child lags behind in motor development: he begins to hold his head up, sit down, stand up, and walk late. The baby's grasping reflex may be impaired, and at 1-1.5 years the child still does not hold objects (toys, spoon and fork);
• Speech is absent or appears very late; the child has difficulty constructing phrases and coherent speech. At 2-3 years old, the baby poorly understands speech addressed to him and cannot follow basic instructions;
• Mild mental retardation in children is characterized by an imbalance in the processes of nervous excitation and inhibition; This is expressed in excessive impulsiveness, lack of restraint, excitability, irritability or, conversely, lethargy and slowness;
• The child shows no interest in the world around him and seems withdrawn; His emotional-volitional sphere is “impoverished”;
• There is no story game. The games are primitive in content, the toys may not be of interest to the child or he may not use them for their intended purpose.

Diagnosis of mild mental retardation in children

The diagnosis of mental retardation is based on the establishment of a mental defect, the main place in which is occupied by the underdevelopment of intellectual and higher mental functions, as well as the absence of signs of progression of underdevelopment.

In order to determine the severity of a mental defect and its leading link, special psychological methods for assessing intelligence are used. Neuropsychological diagnostics are also carried out, which helps not only to determine the level of development of higher mental functions of a child with mental retardation, but also to see his current and potential capabilities (those strengths that can be relied upon in the correction and treatment of mental retardation).

Mild mental retardation must be distinguished from diagnoses caused by mental illness(for example, schizophrenia) and severe pedagogical neglect.

Features of mental development and thinking in children with mental retardation

Any child with mental retardation is different from another with the same diagnosis, due to the fact that each has its own characteristics of brain function, immaturity or deficiency of its structures and sections, as well as intact links.

L.S. Vygotsky believed that the primary defect of mental retardation is inertia, stiffness of the basic nervous processes, as well as weakness of orienting activity, which underlies the child’s reduced activity and lack of interest in the world around him. A secondary defect is underdevelopment of higher mental functions. In turn, when a child finds himself in an inadequate teaching and educational environment, opportunities arise for the development of a tertiary level defect, namely, behavioral disorders and characteristics of the emotional-volitional sphere.
In addition, the following features can be highlighted:

• Most authors prove that cognitive disorders in such children consist of difficulties in forming concepts and generalizations, difficulty in abstract thinking;
• A child with mental retardation is poorly taught; it is difficult for him to perceive any new information;
• As the child grows up, all of the above is accompanied by a poverty of outlook and superficiality of thinking.

Treatment and correction of children with mild mental retardation. Features of teaching children with mental retardation

Correction of children with mild mental retardation is carried out based on the leading defect (associated with impairment of various analyzers, frontal insufficiency, psychopathic behavior, etc.) and in several areas:

1. Neurocorrectional assistance. A well-structured program, taking into account the neuropsychological characteristics of the child, his strengths and “resource” sides, can help in the development of:

• motor and coordination skills, fine motor skills;
• development of stable interhemispheric connections, increasing the speed of processing sensory information;
• hand-eye coordination, hand-eye communication, strengthening eye muscles and tracking eye movements (which is important, in particular, for the development of writing and reading skills);
• expansion of visual fields, formation of spatial perception, development of thinking functions, which is necessary for mastering mathematics, the ability to build logical and grammatical structures, and coherent speech;
• development of self-regulation, volition, attention, reduction of exhaustion;
• creating opportunities to “inhibit” unwanted behavior;
• improving the perception of non-speech noises, speech itself, the ability to distinguish tempo-rhythmic patterns: that is, auditory perception;

1. Specialized training program in kindergarten and school. Children with mild mental retardation are capable of mastering special programs based on concrete visual learning, which is carried out at a slow pace, as well as the ability to master simple work skills.
2. Additionally, you may need the help of a speech pathologist (development of social skills, self-care, thinking), speech therapist, or neurologist.

Prognosis of a child with mild mental retardation

The prognosis of children with mild mental retardation depends on the degree of damage or immaturity of the brain, and on the type of leading defect.

The child is not like his peers - his general development lags behind the norm, he cannot cope with what is easy for other children. It is now customary to talk about such children as “special children.” Of course, children with intellectual disabilities are a great challenge for parents. It is sad and painful to realize that a child may turn out to be an outcast in society. However, quite often mental retardation can be corrected.

Is it lagging behind or developing differently?

Children develop in different ways. The standards according to which the mental development of children is diagnosed are quite arbitrary and are average indicators. If a child develops at a different pace, this is not yet a reason to believe that the baby has severe intellectual disabilities. Cases where at an early age a person showed a discrepancy with the norms of mental and intellectual development, and at an older age he showed outstanding results in the field of cognition are not uncommon. Even a speech delay is not evidence of a child’s retardation - many children do not speak at all until the age of two, but at this time they are developing a passive vocabulary - after two such children immediately begin to speak well and a lot. Therefore, if there are one or two deviations from age standards, don't panic. The alarm should be sounded when a complex of signs of mental retardation is observed.

Let's define what mental retardation is. First of all, the development of children with mental retardation occurs against the background of quite strong deviations in the conditioned reflex activity of the brain. They have an imbalance in the processes of inhibition and excitation; the brain's signaling system also works with disturbances. This greatly affects cognitive abilities - children have no or weakly expressed attention, curiosity (craving for knowledge), there is underdevelopment of cognitive interests and will.
It is worth distinguishing between mental retardation itself and mental retardation. Mental retardation implies more severe violations of the intellectual and psycho-emotional sphere. In severe cases, correction of such disorders is practically impossible - we are talking about severe cases of cretinism, mental retardation. But, it must be said that in reality such cases are quite rare. Children with mental retardation are distinguished by a number of characteristics, and correction of their development is not only possible, but also quite successful: in some cases, children can catch up with their peers in their development.

Causes of mental retardation

There is a whole range of reasons that, together or separately, can lead to developmental delays. Often children with intellectual disabilities suffer from birth defects in hearing, vision, and speech apparatus. With such defects, the child’s intellectual abilities could initially be within normal limits, but they did not develop from the first days of life due to decreased hearing and vision. Accordingly, mental retardation arose. The correction in this case is very successful.

Very often, the causes of mental retardation are a difficult pregnancy, during which there was prolonged oxygen starvation of the fetus; birth injuries, birth asphyxia; some infectious and somatic diseases child at an early age, intoxication, genetic damage due to alcoholism or drug addiction of parents.

In a very large percentage of mild cases of mental retardation, education, or rather its complete absence, is to blame. It is known that mental retardation occurs if parents do not engage with the child and do not talk to him; if for some reason the child was isolated from his mother at an early age. Here, too, the correction is successful in most cases.

Development of mentally retarded children

Mentally retarded children need more time to comprehend material. Difficulties in identifying the main thing, in understanding cause-and-effect relationships, and a slow pace of recognizing what is known affect the child’s learning ability, slowing down and complicating the learning process.

But this does not mean that the development of mentally retarded children is impossible or unnecessary. On the contrary, such children must be approached in a special way and developmental activities, which must be more intensive, must be very carefully organized. But a different kind of intensity is required here.

First of all, parents need to be patient and have faith in their child. The most important thing is to never compare your child with other children. Even for a healthy child with intellectual development within the normal range, comparison is harmful - for special children it is catastrophically dangerous! As a result, the child withdraws into himself, begins to consider himself hopeless, falls into neurosis or becomes aggressive.

In order to successfully correct the lag in intellectual development, testing should be carried out regularly. The so-called diagnostics of mental development of children is a set of special tests-standards that a child should normally cope with upon reaching a certain age. Small deviations in one direction or another should not cause concern among parents. If the child clearly does not reach the norm, corrective classes in this area are necessary. Remember that mental development occurs unevenly and there is a chance to develop intelligence and psycho-emotional sphere by adulthood. But overcoming mental retardation, even in a weak form, can take years and you need to be prepared for this.

Of course, the development of mentally retarded children is daily painstaking work that requires great love, patience, and self-sacrifice. Parents need to constantly tell their child about the world, the interconnection of things, provide food for the mind, and encourage them to use knowledge in practice. Scientists believe that a child with mental retardation should be surprised as much as possible - this awakens curiosity and a desire to learn. You shouldn’t even think about the fact that the child won’t understand - you need to talk to him about everything, tell him why it happens this way and not otherwise, show him.

Distraction of attention, inability and inability to concentrate on one thing is one of the main causes of mental retardation. By constantly training mindfulness, stimulating it in all ways within physiological periods (when the process of brain formation is underway - up to 3-6 years), you can restore broken connections and bring them back to normal. Cultivating attention is so important that the rule here is that if a child is busy with something, he is being taught something, he is focused on playing, he cannot be distracted even by eating, sleeping, etc. For children with mental retardation, it is extremely important to protect their developing focus and concentration.

In parallel with developmental activities, it is useful to take medications that strengthen the nervous system and stimulate its development. From this point of view, a decoction of stinging nettle, eleutherococcus extract, royal jelly, strawberries, blueberries, and B vitamins are useful.