Intellectual Disabilities and The Autism Spectrum

Intellectual disability (ID) in an individual can be discovered or recognized in several ways. According to Webmd.com, an intellectual disability is characterized by below average intelligence or mental ability and a lack of skills necessary for day-to-day living. People with intellectual disabilities can and do learn new skills, but they learn them more slowly. The term slower learning pattern used while diagnosing individuals with this disorder is due to the comparison in the intelligence quotient (IQ) of the individual being diagnosed, and the average IQ of the country in which he or she resides in this case, the United States, which is currently between eighty-five and one hundred according to the IQ Test Center (iqtestcenter.com) Autism, while having its own criteria for diagnosis, will in some occasions reflect the same symptoms shown in an individual with an intellectual disability. Although individuals with autism can have difficulty obtaining new skills, these disabilities are two different conditions. Radio, a film based on a true story, is focused on a boy with autism and is a great example of how one could easily mistake an individual in the autism spectrum to have ID. Autism, however, can also be known as an overload of genius, which is partially contrast to the slower learning pattern. In the film, the boy named Radio struggles to engage or participate in conversation, maintain eye contact, speak clearly, and at times even holding still due to hyperactivity in the nervous system. He was, however, extraordinarily abled in the mechanical sense. He was very much able to fully deconstruct, repair, and rebuild radios, which is how this individual became known as Radio. This skill, whether it was developed through personal curiosity towards these machines, or through observation, it was surely learned. The diagnosis of Autism is also composed of the approach that this disorder is neurological, meaning the neurotransmitters necessary to normally perform daily tasks are somehow unable to correctly develop which results in the transmitters sending abnormal messages from the brain to other parts of the body in order to perform the tasks which the brain seems to find appropriate. For example, during one of the football games in the film, the team groups together including Radio even though he is not a participant in the gameand the coach explains the approach to how they will score the next point. After the group dissolves and each player falls

into his position, just before the quarterback shouts hike to begin the next play, Radio decides he will shout out the plan that was so secretly announced by the coach loudly enough for the opposing team to hear, causing the opponents to immediately change their plan of defense. Radios teammates, of course, immediately knew they were in trouble, whereas Radio himself truly believed his shouting the teams plan to the every player was appropriate and continued to do so until the coach eventually told him to stop. The average mental capability would be to recognize that what the team was originally doing was grouping together in order to create a more secretive setting so that no one else would be able to hear. Each teammate immediately comprehends the reasoning to creating this environment. Radio, however, did not understand the change of setting, nor was his brain able to perceive that what was being said in the group was meant to be confidential. Radios actions after the group dissolved were evidence of abnormal activity in the neurological sense. Individuals with ID, however, are more adaptive to his or her environment. According to Webmd.com most of these individuals have a strong potential to live independently when they reach adulthood, whereas Radio would have a more difficult time. Webmd also states that the diagnosis for ID is composed of genetic conditions such as down syndrome, problems during pregnancy that include the abuse of alcohol and drugs, being deprived of oxygen during birth, and illness or injury. Although this disorder consists of brain malfunctions, most of the intellectual disabilities that have been discovered are created from the environment or abuse of substances. For example, there are some drugs that are called agonists, which are drugs that increase the action of a neurotransmitter (Schacter, Gilbert, and Wegner, 2013) and antagonists, which are drugs that block the function of a neurotransmitter (Schacter, Gilbert, and Wegner, 2013). Both types of drugs create certain bodily reactions similar to those of an individual with autism. The individual who is highly addicted to abusive drugs will show symptoms of an intellectual disability as a result of his or her choices, whereas the individual with autism will have similar symptoms that may have genetic cause. In summary, the film provides a great balance between showing similar symptoms of which are shown in both the intellectual disability and the autism spectrum. Studies will continue to unfold new approaches to perceiving which individuals are to be diagnosed with ID, and those who will be diagnosed with autism. Until more discoveries are made, it would be beneficial to

both the diagnosed individual and the average bystander if these studies are made more publicly known.

References

Schacter, Gilbert, and Wegner: Introducing Psychology, 2013. Print. Webmd: www.webmd.com. Web IQ Test Center: iqtest-center.com. Web Radio. The assigned video.