By definition children with mental retardation have substantial deficits in adaptive behavior. These limitations can take many forms and tend to occur across domains of functioning.
Limitations in self-care skills and social relationships as well as behavioral excesses are common characteristics of individuals with mental retardation.
Self Care and Daily Living Skills: Individuals with mental retardation who require extensive supports must often be taught basic self-care skills such as dressing, eating, and hygiene. Direct instruction and environmental supports such as added prompts and simplified routines are necessary to ensure that deficits in these adaptive areas do not come to seriously limit one’s quality of life.
Social Development: Making and sustaining friendships and personal relationships present significant challenges for many persons with mental retardation. Limited cognitive processing skills, poor language development, and unusual or inappropriate behaviors can seriously impede interacting with others.
Behavioral Excesses and Challenging Behavior: Students with mental retardation are more likely to exhibit behavior problems than are children without disabilities. Difficulties accepting criticism, limited self-control, and bizarre and inappropriate behaviors such as aggression or self-injury are often observed in children with mental retardation. Some of the genetic syndromes associated with mental retardation tend to include abnormal behavior
Positive Attributes: Descriptions of the intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior of individuals with mental retardation focus on limitations and deficits and paint a picture of a monolithic group of people whose most important characteristics revolve around the absence of desirable traits.
