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Down syndrome is estimated at 1 per 800 to 1,000 births, although its prevalence rises sharply in
those born to older mothers. People with Down syndrome typically exhibit a distinctive pattern
of physical features, including a flat nose, upwardly slanted eyes, a protruding tongue, and a
short neck.
Societal attitudes toward individuals with mental retardation have changed over the past decades.
We no longer use terms such as “moron,” “idiot,” or “imbecile” to describe these people,
although these were the official psychological terms used to describe degrees of retardation in
the past. Laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) have made it illegal to
discriminate on the basis of mental and physical disability, and there has been a trend to bring the
mentally retarded out of institutions and into our workplaces and schools. In 2002 the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled that the execution of people with mental retardation is “cruel and unusual
punishment,” thereby ending this practice (Atkins v. Virginia, 2002). [6]
Extremely High Intelligence
Having extremely high IQ is clearly less of a problem than having extremely low IQ, but there
may also be challenges to being particularly smart. It is often assumed that schoolchildren who
are labeled as “gifted” may have adjustment problems that make it more difficult for them to
create social relationships. To study gifted children, Lewis Terman and his colleagues (Terman
& Oden, 1959)[7] selected about 1,500 high school students who scored in the top 1% on the
Stanford-Binet and similar IQ tests (i.e., who had IQs of about 135 or higher), and tracked them
for more than seven decades (the children became known as the “termites” and are still being
studied today). This study found, first, that these students were not unhealthy or poorly adjusted
but rather were above average in physical health and were taller and heavier than individuals in
the general population. The students also had above average social relationships—for instance,
being less likely to divorce than the average person (Seagoe, 1975). [8]
Terman’s study also found that many of these students went on to achieve high levels of
education and entered prestigious professions, including medicine, law, and science. Of the
sample, 7% earned doctoral degrees, 4% earned medical degrees, and 6% earned law degrees.
These numbers are all considerably higher than what would have been expected from a more