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🎯 Main Points

Learning Disabilities & Mental Retardation 📚🧠

PSY513 - Forensic Psychology

🔑 Key Definitions

Intellectual Disability (Mental Retardation): IQ below 70 + adaptive functioning deficits + onset before age 18
Learning Disabilities: Neurological disorders affecting brain's ability to receive, process, store, and respond to information

🧠 4 Levels of Intellectual Disability

  • 🟢 Mild: IQ 50-70 - Can live independently, hold jobs
  • 🟡 Moderate: IQ 35-50 - Need significant support
  • 🟠 Severe: IQ 20-35 - Substantial support needed
  • 🔴 Profound: IQ below 20 - Constant care required

📚 5 Types of Learning Disabilities

  • Dyslexia - Reading/language difficulty
  • Dyscalculia - Mathematics difficulty
  • Dysgraphia - Writing difficulty
  • ADHD - Attention deficit/hyperactivity
  • Auditory Processing Disorder - Sound processing

🔗 6 Links Between LD and Crime

  • 1. School failure → dropout
  • 2. Low self-esteem
  • 3. Frustration → acting out
  • 4. Peer rejection/joining deviant groups
  • 5. Poor problem-solving
  • 6. Impulsivity

💡 Exam Tips

  • Prisoners average 8-10 IQ points BELOW general population
  • LOWER VERBAL IQ more strongly linked to delinquency
  • Low IQ does NOT directly CAUSE crime - it's MEDIATED by other factors
  • Intellectually disabled are MORE VICTIMS than perpetrators
  • FALSE CONFESSIONS risk - may confess to please authority figures
  • Supreme Court: Cannot execute intellectually disabled individuals
  • Crimes when LD/ID commit: Sexual offenses, arson, minor theft, assault (usually impulsive)