Running head: CAUSES OF DISABILITIES

Tiffany Manzanares Causes of Disabilities Grand Canyon University: UNV 526 January 30, 2013

Disabilities Abstract

This paper is written with the intent to inform the reader about varies disabilities and causes and the characteristics of these disabilities. In the United States about one in every 33 babies is born with a birth defect. Or to make it more realistic Every 4.5 minutes, a baby is born with a birth defect. Major birth defects are conditions present at birth that cause structural changes in one or more parts of the body. They can have a serious, adverse effect on health, development, or functional ability. This is information that was obtained from centers for disease control and prevention website. http://www.cdc.gov/NCBDDD/birthdefects/facts.html

Disabilities

The purpose of this paper will be to inform the reader of certain causes of disabilities and what may cause these disabilities. Within this paper there will be five topics that will be discussed. The five topics are Definition, characteristics, and causes of intellectual disability, traumatic brain injury, autism, severe disabilities, and deaf-blindness. The author hopes that after reading this paper the reader will have a clearer understanding of these disabilities. According the text book Exception Children: An Introduction To Special Education; mental retardation is defined as significantly sub average general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period that adversely affects a childs educational performance. Mental retardation is the new intellectual disability. Heward, W. L. (2009). This term intellectual disabilities cover the same population of individuals who were diagnosed previously with mental retardation. There are the few in the world who think intellectual disability is a disease because some of the systems show up at birth. This author thinks that is uneducated people who like to point their fingers instead of being educated. Intellectual disabilities are not time limited. Once a person is diagnosed as intellectual disability they will always be this way. However with the proper education and training the ones who are living with this disability will have a better chance of living a normal life well into their adult years. Many people with I.D will not have the same social life as others but their lives are just as happy ones. Certain characteristics are not noticed at birth and others who are more severe will have stronger characteristics such as nerve damages, or not being able to walk or talk. Some characteristics of down syndrome are short, slant eyes.

Disabilities

What are the causes of intellectual disabilities? For some it is genetics. Maybe the mother or father were past the age of child bearing and had a child in their old ages. Doctors always recommend women not to have children past forty because of the higher risk of intellectual disabilities. Other causes could be that the woman did not take care of herself while she was pregnant. Maybe the woman was on drugs or an alcoholic. These are the consequences for these types of pregnancies. Traumatic brain injury can be defined as an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force, resulting in total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairments, or both, that adversely affects a childs educational performance Heward, W. L. (2009). In other words TBI is known as something that is caused by physical force like a car accident or being thrown off something and striking your head on a hard object such as the ground. What are the characteristics of TBI? Some characteristics go unnoticed until someone walks or talks. After someone has TBI there problems might not be as severe. The textbook for this weeks assignment says that there are 1.5 million people in the United States that have TBI and 50,000 of these cases will result in death and 235,000 will be hospitalized. Again these are all based on the severity of ones TBI. For some of the 1.5 million people with TBI they have to go to therapy and may have to learn how to walk all over again or have speech therapy services and learn how to speak all over again. This is where the characteristics of TBI often show up. What are some of the causes of TBI? As stated previously some causes could be results from a car crash or fallen off something and striking your head. Now there are lots of reported cases from our veterans returning from wars that have TBI. This is caused from road side bombs exploding and some of the war veterans that returned from Vietnam or Pearl Harbor were diagnosed with TBI simply because of the violence that they witnessed.

Disabilities Autism is one diagnosis that is so high in the United States. There are so many children being diagnosed before school. The definition of Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder marked by three defining features with onset before age 3 (a) impairment of social interaction; (b) impairment of communication; And (c) restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities. Heward, W. L. (2009). Some of the characteristics of autism are speech delays or non verbal. Non verbal is the most common characteristic. Autistic kids may look normal and walk normal but when they try to talk that is where you will see the characteristics. For example this author works in a special education class. A student who is in first grade walks and runs like all typical first graders, however this student is non verbal. This

student can understand you but communicating is not easy. Another characteristic is that autistic kids may repeat what they hear over and over again and it might be something they heard from a movie they watch months before. What are some causes of autism? During the 1950s and 1960s, Bruno Bettelheim suggested autism was caused by the uninterested, cold parents. Some mothers were called refrigerator mothers. Then there are some who believe that immunization caused their child to have autism. This author has a friend who has an autistic son. He appeared normal up till he was 18 months old. He walked and was talking at the right age. But he got his last immunization shot and it seemed like overnight he was different. She has to re teach him to walk and he is now non verbal. Severe disability is a term used to refer to challenges faced by individuals with severe and profound mental retardation, autism, and/or physical/sensory impairments combined with marked developmental delay. Persons with severe disabilities exhibit extreme deficits in intellectual functioning and need systematic instruction for basic skills such as self-care and communicating with others. Heward, W. L. (2009). Some characteristics of severe disabilities

Disabilities are drooling, clumsiness, poor eye hand coordination. This author has a ten year old female student with severe disabilities. This student is the sweetest girl you could ever know. You can look at her and see that she is severe disabled. She has the mental age of 1 or 2 year old. She cannot talk but she can walk with braces. The causes of severe disabilities are genetics; maybe

birth complication, poor prenatal care. In some cases it could be the results of a brain injury. One story that this author read once was about a baby who was shook. This is known as shaken baby syndrome. The baby was shaken so hard that the brain was damaged inside the skull and now the child is severely disabled. IDEA defines deaf-blindness as concomitant hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for children with deafness or children with blindness. (20 U.S.C. 1401 [2004], 20 C.F.R. 300.8[c][2]). Heward, W. L. (2009). When this author thinks of someone with deaf/blindness, it is always of Helen Keller. She was perhaps the most famous deaf/blind person that learned how to communicate and went to college. She was an inspiration to all deaf/blind persons. The characteristics of deaf/blindness are poor eyesight. Not all who are labeled deaf/blind are completely blind. Not all are completely deaf either. They may require the assistance of a hearing device. Some causes of deaf/blindness are again it could be poor prenatal care, or childhood diseases. One cause could be scarlet fever. That is what caused Helen Keller to lose her hearing and sight. In conclusion, after reading this paper about the five topics that were mentioned definition, characteristics, and causes of intellectual disability, traumatic brain injury, autism,

Disabilities severe disabilities, and deaf-blindness it is the hope of this author that the reader has found it to be informative and helpful as a teacher or parent or whoever may encounter such a disability.

Resources Exceptional Children: An Introduction to Special Education, Ninth Edition, by William L. Heward. (2009) http://www.cdc.gov/NCBDDD/birthdefects/facts.html

Disabilities