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Personality

Personality Is What Makes the Person
Does being mentally retarded classify someone as being unintelligent? According to the American Psychiatric Association (1994), mental retardation is a person being of �significantly sub average general intellectual functioning�that is accompanied by significant limitations in adaptive functioning�; in addition, the condition must appear before the individual is twenty-one years old (Intelligence and Mental Abilities, 2002). �The term mental retardation also implies an inability to perform at least some of the ordinary tasks of daily living� (Intelligence and Mental Abilities, 2002). One might inquire how and what causes mental retardation and if anything can be done to defeat it? Unfortunately in most cases, the causes are simply not known (Intelligence and Mental Abilities, 2002). Nearly ninety percent of all cases have mild retardation, and when the cases are identified, most often they stem from a wide variety of genetic, environmental, social, nutritional, and other risk factors (Intelligence and Mental Abilities, 2002).
The Mental Illness
Down syndrome is a type of mental retardation that a child is born with. It got its name from the nineteenth century British physician Langdon Down, who first described the symptoms (Intelligence and Mental Abilities, 2002). Down syndrome occurs when there are defects on part of chromosome twenty-one (Intelligence and Mental Abilities, 2002). It is typically marked by moderate to severe mental retardation and also by a characteristic pattern of physical deformities, including skin folds on the hands, feet, and eyelids (Intelligence and Mental Abilities, 2002).
Background Information
Following is background information on the person that I have interviewed. Her name is Tammy Tortorelli. She is a recently divorced Caucasian female that is thirty-one years of age. She has recently moved back home with her parents and her brother Tommy. Her brother Tommy has Down syndrome. If anything...