>>14065868>both his father and his close-age brother, were relatively successful astrophysicists>He was considered 'retarded', and I have no knowledge of his actual diagnosis Most likely classic autism. If you get hold of any older psychiatric/psychological material where a person is labelled 'retarded', can't or doesn't speak and doesn't look funny, then it's Kanner Autism.
>Why do people with ADHD/ADD, dyslexia, etc. always claim to have a learning disability but not be “retarded”.Retarded means nothing else than delayed.
Mental retardation is also known as generalized learning disability. A dyslexic person is retarded in his reading/writing skills, an ADHD person is retarded in regards to some assumed but unproven front lobe maturation that is linked to attention and topic-shifting capabilities. Much of autism is a form of sociocognitive retardation where people just develop social skills much slower than normally expected.
Ultimately, ADHD, dyslexia, autism just describe those whose development is below the 3 % percentile in some domain.
Neurodevelopmental disorders are different from things like schizophrenia or depression where 'normally' developing people just break down. Mental illnesses are more akin to actual brain disorders. Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia? That's just some weird kid and probably not the brightest either.
