Can someone...

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be wrongly diagnosed as mentally retarted when they were kids???And i am not talking about any learning disabilities or dyslexia...

Yes.. all the time. Childhood IQ tests are based on current development, so particularly if a child is slow to speak, they'll be diagnosed as mentally ret*d, even if they're not.

When my ex's son was young, he was tested and they said that he IQ was 50. But I'm quite certain that mentally ret*d ten-years-olds don't pick up algebra the first time they see it. He was an extremely smart kid.. they just thought he was ret*d because his speech was delayed.

I think a lot of people on the autism spectrum test to a lower level as young children than they do later in life. It's a communication problem, not an intellectual problem. Well, not an intellect problem on the part of the child, anyway. I'd consider it an intellect problem on the part of anybody who thinks that just because someone doesn't communicate well, they must be stupid.

I was almost labeled as borderline MR in the placement testing before 1st grade. This was in the 1966. I was reading at a 5th grade level at the end of 1st grade though. I was just so spaced out all the time.

Yes

I had a few friends who had gone to the local special school when they were younger, then went to our high school.

Misdiagnosed.

Particularly bright deaf children have been diagnosed as ret*d.

I too was considered Borderline MR and was diagnosed Schizo-Affective and also labeled manipulative in a children's protective shelter when I was fourteen because I didn't speak well or talk much. There was some discussion of whether or not I should be institutionalized. Thankfully they decided otherwise and was placed into a group home instead. Later my IQ tested well above average and the examiner thought it would have been even higher had I not been so distracted by my emotional problems.

yes defintely i was labelled mentally ret*d when i was 3, was i ret*d? not really!. since i couldnt speak, all i did was babble, was in diapers, couldnt even understand lmy foot from my hand lol, or seem to acknowledge anything going on around me, nor acknowledge or care for ppl, etc etc etc basically i was seen as ret*d. I found out i took my first IQ test and was fully evaluated mentally when i was 16, and they discovered at 16 cognitively i was 8 years old, so who knows maybe i appeared ret*d as a 3 year old idk but its very common for children to misdiagnosed ret*d especially back in the day, now and these days mental retardation isnt as diagnosed as it was because so much better awareness not just of autism of neurological disorders in the first place.

yes and why, that really bothers me, like the iq tests they give out, alot of ppl base intellegence on how well soembody speaks or if they speak or not, are u serious? i know a couple deaf ppl who were seen as ret*d cuz they couldnt hear, like wtf, back in the day mental retardation was a label slapped onto many children who appeared very different or disabled, so sad.

I was in Special Education classes for most of my time in grade school. I don't know everything about my diagnosis but I was sent to a special school across town and spent time with students who were mentally challenged. The group I was with (they had 2 classes for special ed students at this school) was for people who had normal IQ's. I think my case baffled teachers at my local school. I had a normal IQ but didn't have the social skills a normal student had. I really hurt my self esteem because I encountered mistreatment from other students almost my whole time in school. Even when I was taken out of special ed classes, I had classmates who remembered me as "the ret*d kid" and saw me as dumb.