Is Mental Retardation a Learning Disability?

What's the difference between "learning disability"  and "mental retardation"?

It is no wonder readers might be confused.  "Learning disability" is widely used in the popular media as a euphemism for "mental retardation", while the general idea of "learning disability" is a bit slippery.

How "learning disability" is described by the National Center for Learning Disabilities:

A learning disability (LD) is a neurological disorder that affects the brain's ability to receive, process, store and respond to information. The term learning disability is used to describe the seeming unexplained difficulty a person of at least average intelligence has in acquiring basic academic skills. These skills are essential for success at school and work, and for coping with life in general. LD is not a single disorder. It is a term that refers to a group of disorders.

IDEA, the federal law that provides for special education, defines

"specific learning disability" as a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or using spoken or written language. Skills of listening, speaking, reading, writing, and/or mathematics may be negatively affected.

 

According to the Centers for Disease Control,

Mental retardation is characterized both by a significantly below-average score on a test of mental ability or intelligence and by limitations in the ability to function in areas of daily life, such as communication, self-care, and getting along in social situations and school activities. Mental retardation is sometimes referred to as a cognitive or intellectuadisability.

Children with mental retardation can and do learn new skills, but they develop more slowly than children with average intelligence and adaptive skills. There are different degrees of mental retardation, ranging from mild to profound. A person's level of mental retardation can be defined by their intelligence quotient (IQ), or by the types and amount of support th

Mental retardation definitions:

The AAMR Definition of Mental Retardation
Mental retardation is a disability characterized by significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills. This disability originates before age 18.

IDEA's definition of mental retardation:

". . . significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child's educational performance." [34 Code of Federal Regulations §300.7(c)(6)]

World Health Organization (WHO)

Mental retardation is a condition of arrested or incomplete development of the mind characterized by impairment of skills and overall intelligence in areas such as cognition, language, and motor and social abilities. Also referred to as intellectual disability or handicap, mental retardation can occur with or without any other physical or mental disorders. In addition to genetic factors, injuries at birth and brain infections, a common cause of mental retardation is iodine deficiency, which is the single largest cause of preventable brain damage and severe mental retardation.

How common is mental retardation?

National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities.: As many as 3 out of every 100 people in the country have mental retardation (The Arc, 2001). Nearly 613,000 children ages 6 to 21 have some level of mental retardation and need special education in school (Twenty-fourth Annual Report to Congress, U.S. Department of Education, 2002). In fact, 1 out of every 10 children who need special education has some form of mental retardation.

eMedicine:  0.9%-2.7% of the population will fall between 55-70 on IQ scale; another 0.3% to 0.4% will fall below 54 on the IQ scale.

    From the World Health Organization: Prevalence: It is estimated that the overall prevalence of mental retardation is between 1% and 3%. It is more common in developing countries because of higher incidence of injuries and deprivation of oxygen at birth and early childhood brain infections, all of which cause retardation.

From

Epidemiology

Over the past 50 years the prevalence and incidence of mental retardation have been affected by changes in the definition of mental retardation, improvements in medical care and technology, societal attitudes regarding the acceptance and treatment of an individual with mental retardation, and the expansion of educational services to children with disabilities from birth through age 21.  The theoretical approach to determining the prevalence of mental retardation uses the normal bell curve to estimate the number of individuals whose IQ falls below the established criterion score.  For example, 2.3% of the population of the United States has an IQ score below 70, and 5.5% has an IQ score below 75.  However, this estimate does not account for adaptive behavior skills.  Based on empirical sampling, Baroff (1991) suggested that only 0.9% of the population can be assumed to have mental retardation.  Following a review of the most recent epidemiological studies, McLaren and Bryson (1987) reported that the prevalence of mental retardation was approximately 1.25% based on total population screening.  When school age children are the source of prevalence statistics, individual states report rates from 0.3% to 2.5% depending on the criteria used to determine eligibility for special educational services, the labels assigned during the eligibility process (e.g., developmental delay, learning disability, autism, and/or mental retardation), and the environmental and economic conditions within the state (U.S. Department of Education, 1994).  It is estimated that approximately 89% of these children have mild mental retardation, 7% have moderate mental retardation, and 4% have severe to profound mental retardation.  In addition, McLaren and Bryson (1987) report that the prevalence of mental retardation appears to increase with age up to about the age of 20, with significantly more males than females identified. 

Link: Autism - Natural Variation.

The numbers could also be affected by increasing recognition of autism in the population classified as having mental retardation. Shah (1982) indicated that 38% of the adult population with mental retardation had social impairments consistent with those of autism. Since about 0.9% of the general population is considered mentally retarded, labeling 38% of them as autistic would result in an autism prevalence of 34 per 10,000 from this population alone. As a point of reference, the current California DDS average for recognition of autism in the population with mental retardation is 7%.

Comments

[Bronwyn G]

Yes, but it's not the main thing about being mentally retarded.

People are handicapped in ways that go beyond school learning only when they are of lower intelligence.

I think the greatest handicap is prejudice and misconception, though.

Learning disabilities are not just school disabilities.

If you first find it in school and it impact you in school, and you're of fairly normal intelligence otherwise, it's learning disability.

If you first find it before school and it impacts you in other ways, and your intelligence is a standard deviation below the mean (at least), and you don't do that well with adaptive skills, then it's mental retardation.

Here in Australia we call it intellectual disability.

And of course it is an extent tied to how fast people develop.

People with learning disabilities are often uneven in their development.

People with mental retardation develop evenly but slowly.

Learning disabilities - specifically non-verbal learning disorder - may or may not affect the processing of social cues.

Mental retardation does this in certain identified ways. Having a low IQ by itself does not affect sociability. I know people with low IQs who are the most sociable and their EQs go through the sky.

[Priyanka Khosla]

I thought that this blog was just great! I've been taking an education class that covers disabilities and really liked what this had to say. I liked how you put up definitions from outside sources to really back up what you're trying to prove.
I actually wrote on my blog about it and how I felt about it.
Do look at it when you can!
Thanks!

[Ellen Weber]

It seems to me that the best place to start here is to begin to value the strengths of each person, and to spend time celebrating these strengths, as you indicate. I'd like to hear about how we can do that more.... Thanks!

[tanya manns]

Thanks for the comments and info. I found this by googling "difference between learning disabilities and mental retardation". I was looking because my 14 year old son is learning disabled and I wondered if he's considered retarded too. No one has ever flat out said he is. He's a neat kid. He deserves a wonderful life. I just want him to have a chance.

[phyllis brooks]

Thank you for explaining that a child with mental retardation develops at their own past. Evenly but slowly.

Mrs. Brooks

[SMD]

There is much debate about the levels of "Mental Retardation," and many government agencies have already been moving to stop using the term. While the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR Fourth Edition (Text Revision) continues to use the term "Mental Retardation," the DSM-V task force has already signaled a desire to move away from this term toward a different one such as "intellectual disabilities" when the next edition is published. This is in keeping with The American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities which was formerly known as the American Association of Mental Retardation. The field has been moving away from "MR" for some time, and will continue to move towards different terms such as intellectual disability.

[Nick]

Thank you because I was confuseD. I have a Mild Intellectrual Disability and I was confused because no one have ever explain it to me I am 19 now and as lost as ever I go to college but I always wondered why am I so dumb. Why dont I understand the things everyone else does, why am I so forgetful etc. I dont no how i am making it through college but i am reading at a grade 7 level and writing like a grade 5. at least now I have more insight on my disability.

[Vicente Vazquez]

To all interested person, professionals, academics snd every day persons who are concerned about the persons with intellectual disabilities; even though it is a mild term but if the readers allow to use the old term of MR (mental retardation) it would help me in this cry out for help. I am writing a thisis for psychology and would like to know if I lost my marbles. All the comments on the blog starting with the string of definitions are great. But my question is are the school meeting the needs of persons who have MR, learning disability, or another disability that is nurologically related? In this spectrum of disabilities there Down Syndrom, Autism spectrum, Cerabal pulsy, Asperger syndrome, ADHD and others; are the universities producing passionate teachers in the area of special ed who are research prone; this an important skill becasue if research is not part of a teacher's life he or she becaome a re-hasher of the system and progress and advancement is close to zero; I would venture to say. The paradigm should include general awarness with a strong social component of ampathy, family program to address self induced trauma because of the child, school - prepare teachers and hire he right aids to identify and address individual children coupled with group activity. This is my hypothis in a nut shell but I have no statistics or even if it makes sense and is plausable. My hypothsis is based on cognitive research.
I will appreciate any feedback and help if its available out there in cyber-world. Thank you in advance
God Bless
Vicente

[Vicente Vazquez]

I, Vicente, forgot to add my email so those interested in helping me would be able to write to me. I appreciate all the help. Thank you in advance:
vv1851@gmail.com

[sandio maufo nadia]

very good comment on this topic.thanks to you.

[Sarah]

No wonder there is so much confusion between the two---- The euphemistic terms for Mental Retardation are getting so watered down that they're practically appoaching an interchangeble definition with a ''Learning Disability''!! it's out of control.

Thirty years ago legitimate Retardation was referred to by its **name**, then we called it ''Mentally Challenged'' and following that, a ''Developmental Disorder''-- Which isn't right either, because a developmental disorder is a catch-all term which describes other conditions that do not necessarily relate to M.R.

I really wish Government Officials would stop changing the definition of Mental Retardation out of increasing ''political correctness'' to make it sound less severe-- it's making things so confusing and inspiring mass ignorance. What normal intelligence L.D kid wants to find out that people are lumping him in with the mentally retarded all because of''Euphemistic Terms''. Not me!!

[salome]

is there a similarities between learning dif. and mentally retarded?