Developmental Disabilities are severe and long-term problems. These disabilities can range from mental disability to physical disability or both.
Physical disabilities include: blindness, hearing loss, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, etc.
Mental disabilities include: anxiety disorders, depressive disorder, personality disorders, etc.
Developmental disabilities can also present both physical and mental disabilities, such as, down syndrome (U.S. National Library, 2021)
- Approximately 15% of children age 3-17, or 1 in 6 children, in the U.S. has some type of developmental disability
- Many children and adults have more
than one type of intellectual or developmental disability.
Each likely to result in a variety of challenges requiring different types of care and services - Recent estimates show there are approximately 4.92 million individuals in the U.S. living with an intellectual disability, which is about 17% of the U.S. population
- Children from families with low income have higher prevalence of intellectual/developmental disabilities
- People with intellectual and developmental disabilities have been shown to have poorer health and poorer access to health care
- Males have been shown to have twice the prevalence of any developmental disability than females
- It is estimated that 30-35% of all
people with intellectual or developmental disabilities also have a psychiatric disorder (statistics, 2016)
Resources
Statistics. The Achievable Foundation. (2016, March 21). Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://achievable.org/developmental-disabilities/statistics/
U.S. National Library of Medicine. (2021, November 9). Developmental disabilities. MedlinePlus. Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://medlineplus.gov/developmentaldisabilities.html
