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Causes of Intellectual Disabilities

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What are genetic, chromosomal, environmental, and psychosocial causes of Intellectual Disabilities?

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This posting discusses the causes of intellectual disabilities.

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An intellectual disability is a condition that is caused from impairment in the development of the brain before or after birth. A genetic condition is the result of an abnormality of the genes inherited from parents, an error that occurs when genes combine, or from other disorders of the genes such as an infection during pregnancy. Some examples of genetic disorders include PKU which is a single gene disorder. Children with KDU cannot process a protein named phenylalanine. If this goes untreated, a child will build up phenylalanine in the blood which will cause an intellectual disability. Fragile X syndrome is another example which is a single gene disorder located on the X chromosome. Children with this syndrome suffer from deformities in physical characteristics, behavioral problems, problems with muscle tone and balance, and reproductive problems later in life (Intellectual Disabilities).

Chromosomal abnormalities that lead to intellectual disability happen when there is an error in the number or an error in the structure of chromosomes in a ...

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