Sections
Prevention | Integrative Treatment Approaches | Psychotherapeutic Approaches | Pharmacological Treatment
Excerpt
Strategies to prevent intellectual disabilities include prenatal
diagnostic testing; newborn metabolic screening, which has been
highly successful in reducing the incidence and severity of certain
syndromes; and folic acid supplementation during prenatal development
to reduce neural tube defects (although adherence continues to be
an issue). In some syndromes, however, prevalence rates appear unchanged
in spite of advances in prevention and prenatal diagnostics (e.g.,
Down syndrome [King et al. 2005]).