question about brain damage/retardation, etc...

[navyblue2000]

I was at the local amusement part last week, and while standing in line, there was a family in front of us. mother, father, two girls. The father looked to be in his mid 40's. He had a slight slur in his speech, and had some tendencies (twitching i guess) that might be indicative of mental retardation. However, I heard the guy talking (his daughters were asking him about permission for something from what i overheard), and his words made perfect sense, talked in full, complete sentences, with very good parental logic it seemed. I just wondered about the situation, because I had never seen it before. if this makes sense...phyiscall, he had mentally handicapped tendencies. Mentally he seemed just about in control of his faculties. Anyone know anything about conditions/situations like this?

[ka50]

well I slur words sometimes and my speech can be slurry and I stutter sometimes too.. I donno, last time I checked I wasn't retarded [img]smile.gif[/img]

it's not about mental capacity and ability, it's more about physical ability.. such as muscle contractions when you produce sounds. Some people just have hard time doing it, due to whatever reason.

[Deoxyribonucleicvitriol]

That guy could have had a stoke.

One of the VPs at my dad's workplace had a stroke... He's still quite intelligent but he talks like a child with a lisp and has trouble getting his words out. He might sound retarded and I don't know how well his motor skills are at this point, but I think it very well could be that.

Could be mild cerebral palsy?

Also could be a guy that has a lisp and tourette syndrome. I have tourette syndrome and it's too long of a story.. I've typed it out so many times. Look it up, but the way I explain it is. Tics (the bodily actions and sometimes verbal outbursts) are like breathing. You can hold your breath, you can control your rate of breath, but the longer you hold your breath the harder you breathe afterward. Same with tics. I can control their rate, or hold them back for a while. But.. the longer I hold them back the worse the are.

Lack of sleep, stimulants such as caffeine, and stress all make tics worse.

[RallyRed 98]

yeah i would go with stroke or mild brain damage... i know an aerospace engineer whose spinal cord was damaged when he was born. sharp guy, just had tough luck and a bad obstetrician.

[Turbo V6 Camaro]

epeleptic may be my cuz is like that the MEDS make his mind go slow, to stop the seuziers from coming back

alot of poeple like that are usally like gueuss at something, like art, math

[Deoxyribonucleicvitriol]

Yeah about the genius thing.. I think that's true. ADD kids seem to be most ingenius when the grow out of it oftentimes... I know a child of a family that has ADD... he is one of the most naturally talented athletes I've ever seen. He's excellent at gymnastics and he tries half as hard as his brother. I have some bipolar friends... they both have amazing talent and are ingenius with the things they do. Ever seen that movie "A Beautiful Mind"? It's based on a real guy y'know. An extreme genius with skitzofrenia.

All of these people have "disorders" of the brain but I sometimes wonder if they're just so smart that the brain uses that extra power in other ways or something. I don't ever remember hearing of a genius that wasn't rather eccentric, weird or otherwise unique.

I used to take medication for my tourette syndrome. It's all experimental... they try anti-depressants, mood elevators, anti-psychotics... habit-forming drugs... When I was on drugs for Tourette syndrome... I was a complete jerk to my mom because it altered my mood, I got 2 Cs in the same 9 weeks after having gotten straight As every time prior. I would come home from school having remembered nothing. I hit the deepest of lows because of that stupid medication... and They darn near killed me with this stupid drug that is KNOWN for causing problems and it gave me a dystonic reaction... (basically you feel like you will die and can't breathe because your muscles spaz out).... All this medication crap and when I get off of it all I'm loads better. That's why unless it is necessary for life (such as thyroid medication, or lithium for bipolars) I am totally against drugs.

Yes, even advil [img]tongue.gif[/img]

That kind of turned into a rant, but basically, if doctors REALLY understood how the brain works they wouldn't have to experiment with dangerous drugs and fry my memory for a 2-year period... So that's why it sort of bugs me when those same doctors label people with unique minds as people having "disorders" when it is more likely the case that they are simply the minority with different minds. We moved during that time and I still can't remember what kids were at my old school and who was at my new school.

[ July 12, 2004, 02:02 AM: Message edited by: Deoxyribonucleicvitriol ]

[j_downey50]

when i'm stressed and don't get enough sleep, i sometimes stutter and maybe slurr a little bit. does that make me mentally handicapped? does that mean i can get a little thingy for my car mirror so i can park in the good spots? :D

[Mighty Thor]

I used to volunteer for a facility that houses children and adults with down syndrome.

The mild ones do get assisted living and job coaching. And there are some that do go independant, gets married and sometimes have normal children. They are checked upon by the state to make sure everything is OK.

They do really good for the most part.

[Deoxyribonucleicvitriol]

lol, if you really wanted you could get "the little thingy" I saw a special on "handicapped people" many of which were just lying lazy overweight people with no handicap that just wanted one. The TV station applied for like 3 different ones and got them all. On one they used the name of their dog or something on the other two people with no handicaps

lol, so bad, so bad -_-