Organic Group Argumentative Summary

Mash and Wolfe in part 4 of their text, focused on developmental and learning disorders. This encapsulates intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorders and childhood onset schizophrenia and communication and learning disorders. Intellectual disability more commonly known as mental retardation according to the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental disabilities “is characterized by significant limitations in both intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior that begins before age 18” (p. 270). Intellectual functioning is usually obtained from an intelligence quotient (IQ) score whereas adaptive behavior is measured through conceptual, social and practical adaptive skills. Recent definitions of intellectual disability looks at an individual’s intellectual functioning in the context of what is considered characteristic for that individual’s peers and culture. Persons with intellectual and

These children are also three to seven times greater than typically developing children to display emotional and behavioral instabilities which may require special attention and learning strategies. Additionally, children with mental retardation are at increased risk of being diagnosed with impulse control disorders, mood disorders and anxiety disorders. The organic group and the cultural-familial group approach has been used to explain the causes of mental retardation where the organic group is believed to have a clear biological cause that is generally associated with severe and profound mental retardation, while the cultural familial group has no clear organic cause but is associated with mild mental retardation. Children “inherit a genotype which is a collection of genes that pertain to intelligence” whereas phenotype is deemed the interaction between the gene and the environment (p.