Disability Benefits for Mild Intellectual Disability

Mild Intellectual Disability (MID) or mild mental retardation is a situation where a person will have slower intellectual development. People having MID will be able to attend regular classes in school. However, they may need some extra help to cope up with the system. This need not necessarily occur at birth. It can occur at any random age.

Mild Intellectual Disability may occur because of mental retardation, a specific learning disability, an acquired brain injury or even because of certain neurodegenerative diseases. Mental retardation is a condition where there is a significant impairment of the cognitive functions in a person. The levels may vary from person to person. Most organizations prefer to call mental retardation as a developmental disability. People who have developmental disabilities will have lower functional skills and their IQ scores will usually be lesser than 70.

If specific learning disability is the cause for mild intellectual disability, the person may find it difficult to perform certain specific tasks. This is not necessarily due to an intellectual disability. Dyslexia happens to be one such disorder. If proper support and good intervention are provided to such people, they may even complete their schooling and become successful in life.

In case a person having MID has been a victim of an acquired brain injury, he may have had either a traumatic brain injury or a non-traumatic brain injury like a paralytic stroke or an infection. Substance abuse may also be the cause for an acquired brain injury. Here, a person generally finds it very difficult to control, co-ordinate and communicate his thoughts and also actions. He won’t be able to express himself in an intellectual manner which gives others the impression that he has an intellectual disability. However, an acquired brain injury seldom affects the intelligence of a person. Neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s, Dementia, Alzheimer’s and even Huntington’s can make a person intellectually disabled, over the years. However, proper treatment in such cases may delay the process.

The Canadian Disability Corporation is known for providing help to people with such disabilities. There are some disability benefits that these people are entitled to and CDC will assist them to apply for such benefits. Such a disabled person will have to get somebody to fill up a form that is available online on the Canadian Disability Corporation website. After this, a professional from the team of CDC will do a research on the disability benefits the person is entitled to and will help him apply for them.