Intellectual disability (ID) begins during childhood and involves deficits in mental abilities, social skills, and core activities of daily living (ADLs) when compared to same-aged peers. There often are no physical signs of mild forms of ID, although there may be characteristic physical traits when it is associated with a genetic disorder (e.g., Down syndrome).

The level of impairment ranges in severity for each person. Some of the early signs can include:

- Delays in reaching or failure to achieve milestones in motor skills development (sitting, crawling, walking)

- Slowness learning to talk or continued difficulties with speech and language skills after starting to talk

- Difficulty with self-help and self-care skills (e.g., getting dressed, washing, and feeding themselves)

- Poor planning or problem solving abilities

- Behavioral and social problems

- Failure to grow intellectually or continued infant-like behavior

- Problems keeping up in school

- Failure to adapt or adjust to new situations

- Difficulty understanding and following social rules

In early childhood, mild ID (IQ 50–69) may not be obvious or identified until children begin school. Even when poor academic performance is recognized, it may take expert assessment to distinguish mild intellectual disability from specific learning disability or emotional/behavioral disorders. People with mild ID are capable of learning reading and mathematics skills to approximately the level of a typical child aged nine to twelve. They can learn self-care and practical skills, such as cooking or using the local mass transit system. As individuals with intellectual disability reach adulthood, many learn to live independently and maintain gainful employment.

Moderate ID (IQ 35–49) is nearly always apparent within the first years of life. Speech delays are particularly common signs of moderate ID. People with moderate intellectual disability need considerable supports in school, at home, and in the community in order to fully participate. While their academic potential is limited, they can learn simple health and safety skills and to participate in simple activities. As adults, they may live with their parents, in a supportive group home, or even semi-independently with significant supportive services to help them, for example, manage their finances. As adults, they may work in a sheltered workshop.

People with severe or profound ID need more intensive support and supervision their entire lives. They may learn some ADLs, but an intellectual disability is considered severe or profound when individuals are unable to independently care for themselves without ongoing significant assistance from a caregiver throughout adulthood. Individuals with profound ID are completely dependent on others for all ADLs and to maintain their physical health and safety, although they may be able to learn to participate in some of these activities to limited degree.

Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability, and mental retardation (MR), is a generalized neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by significantly impaired intellectual and adaptive functioning. It is defined by an IQ score under 70 in addition to deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors that affect everyday, general living.

Once focused almost entirely on cognition, the definition now includes both a component relating to mental functioning and one relating to individuals' functional skills in their environments. As a result of this focus on the person's abilities in practice, a person with an unusually low IQ may not be considered to have intellectually disability.

Intellectual disability is subdivided into syndromic intellectual disability, in which intellectual deficits associated with other medical and behavioral signs and symptoms are present, and non-syndromic intellectual disability, in which intellectual deficits appear without other abnormalities. Down syndrome and fragile X syndrome are examples of syndromic intellectual disabilities.

Intellectual disability affects about 2–3% of the general population. Seventy-five to ninety percent of the affected people have mild intellectual disability. Non-syndromic or idiopathic cases account for 30–50% of cases. About a quarter of cases are caused by a genetic disorder, and about 5% of cases are inherited from a person's parents. Cases of unknown cause affect about 95 million people as of 2013.

Developmental disability is a diverse group of chronic conditions that are due to mental or physical impairments. Developmental disabilities cause individuals living with them many difficulties in certain areas of life, especially in "language, mobility, learning, self-help, and independent living". Developmental disabilities can be detected early on, and do persist throughout an individual's lifespan. Developmental disability that affects all areas of a child's development is sometimes referred to as global developmental delay.

Most common developmental disabilities:

- Down syndrome is a condition in which people are born with an extra copy of chromosome 21. Normally, a person is born with two copies of chromosome 21. However, if they are born with Down syndrome, they have an extra copy of this chromosome. This extra copy affects the development of the body and brain, causing physical and mental challenges for the individual.

- Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is thought to cause autism and intellectual disability, usually among boys.

- Pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) are a group of developmental disabilities that can cause significant social, communication and behavioral challenges.

- Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) are a group of conditions that can occur in a person whose mother drank alcohol during pregnancy.

- Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of disorders that affect a person’s ability to move and maintain balance and posture. CP is the most common motor disability in childhood.

- Intellectual disability, also (sometimes proscriptively) known as mental retardation, is defined as an IQ below 70 along with limitations in adaptive functioning and onset before the age of 18 years.

The causes of developmental disabilities are varied and remain unknown in a large proportion of cases. Even in cases of known etiology the line between "cause" and "effect" is not always clear, leading to difficulty in categorizing causes.

Genetic factors have long been implicated in the causation of developmental disabilities. There is also a large environmental component to these conditions, and the relative contributions of nature versus nurture have been debated for decades.

Current theories on causation focus on genetic factors, and over 1,000 known genetic conditions include developmental disabilities as a symptom.

Developmental disabilities affect between 1 and 2% of the population in most western countries, although many government sources acknowledge that statistics are flawed in this area. The worldwide proportion of people with developmental disabilities is believed to be approximately 1.4%. It is twice as common in males as in females, and some researchers have found that the prevalence of mild developmental disabilities is likely to be higher in areas of poverty and deprivation, and among people of certain ethnicities.

Neurodevelopmental disorders are impairments of the growth and development of the brain or central nervous system. A narrower use of the term refers to a disorder of brain function that affects emotion, learning ability, self-control and memory and that unfolds as an individual develops and grows.

The term is sometimes erroneously used as an exclusive synonym for autism spectrum disorders.

Neurodevelopmental disorder is a mental disorder. A narrower use of the term refers to a disorder of brain function which affects emotion, learning ability, self-control and memory and which unfolds as the individual grows.

There are a variety of medical conditions affecting cognitive ability. This is a broad concept encompassing various intellectual or cognitive deficits, including intellectual disability, deficits too mild to properly qualify as intellectual disability, various specific conditions (such as specific learning disability), and problems acquired later in life through acquired brain injuries or neurodegenerative diseases like dementia. These disabilities may appear at any age.

Learning disability is a classification that includes several areas of functioning in which a person has difficulty learning in a typical manner, usually caused by an unknown factor or factors. Given the "difficulty learning in a typical manner", this does not exclude the ability to learn in a different manner. Therefore, some people can be more accurately described as having a "Learning Difference", thus avoiding any misconception of being disabled with a lack of ability to learn and possible negative stereotyping.

In the UK, the term "learning disability" generally refers to an intellectual disability, while difficulties such as dyslexia and dyspraxia are usually referred to as "learning difficulties".

While "learning disability, learning disorder" and "learning difficulty" are often used interchangeably, they differ in many ways. Disorder refers to significant learning problems in an academic area. These problems, however, are not enough to warrant an official diagnosis. Learning disability, on the other hand, is an official clinical diagnosis, whereby the individual meets certain criteria, as determined by a professional (psychologist, pediatrician, etc.). The difference is in degree, frequency, and intensity of reported symptoms and problems, and thus the two should not be confused. When the term "learning disorder" is used, it describes a group of disorders characterized by inadequate development of specific academic, language, and speech skills. Types of learning disorders include reading (dyslexia), mathematics (dyscalculia) and writing (dysgraphia).

The unknown factor is the disorder that affects the brain's ability to receive and process information. This disorder can make it problematic for a person to learn as quickly or in the same way as someone who is not affected by a learning disability. People with a learning disability have trouble performing specific types of skills or completing tasks if left to figure things out by themselves or if taught in conventional ways.

Individuals with learning disabilities can face unique challenges that are often pervasive throughout the lifespan. Depending on the type and severity of the disability, interventions, and current technologies may be used to help the individual learn strategies that will foster future success. Some interventions can be quite simplistic, while others are intricate and complex. Current technologies may require student training to be effective classroom supports. Teachers, parents, and schools can create plans together that tailor intervention and accommodations to aid the individuals in successfully becoming independent learners. School psychologists and other qualified professionals quite often help design the intervention and coordinate the execution of the intervention with teachers and parents.

Nonverbal learning disorder (also known as nonverbal learning disability, NLD, or NVLD) is a learning disorder characterized by verbal strengths as well as visual-spatial, motor, and social skills difficulties. It is sometimes confused with Asperger Syndrome or high IQ. Nonverbal learning disorder has never been included in the American Psychiatric Association's "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" or the World Health Organization's "International Classification of Diseases".

Intellectual disability, also known as "general learning disability", and previously known as "mental retardation" (a term now widely considered to be offensive), is a generalized disorder characterized by significantly impaired cognitive functioning and deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors that appears before adulthood. It has historically been defined as an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) score under 70, but the definition now includes both one component relating to mental functioning and one relating to individuals' functional skills in their environment, so IQ is not the only factor.

Intellectual disability must have appeared in the developmental period, not only as an adult. By contrast, people with cognitive impairment have, or previously had, normal IQ, but now show confusion, forgetfulness and difficulty concentrating; cognitive impairment is typical of brain injuries, side effects from medications, and dementia. Many of these disabilities have an effect on memory, which refers to the ability to recall what has been learned over time. Typically memory is moved from sensory memory to working memory then finally into long term memory. People with cognitive disabilities typically will have have trouble with one of these types of memory.

Under the DSM-5, autism is characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and interaction across multiple contexts, as well as restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities. These deficits are present in early childhood, and lead to clinically significant functional impairment. There is also a unique form of autism called autistic savantism, where a child can display outstanding skills in music, art, and numbers with no practice. Because of its relevance to different populations, self-injurious behaviors (SIB) are not considered a core characteristic of the ASD population however approximately 50% of those with ASD take part in some type of SIB (head-banging, self-biting) and are more at risk than other groups with developmental disabilities.

Other characteristics of ASD include Restricted and Repetitive Behaviors (RRBs) which include a large range of specific gestures and acts, it can even include certain behavioral traits as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual for Mental Disorders.

Asperger syndrome was distinguished from autism in the DSM-IV by the lack of delay or deviance in early language development. Additionally, individuals diagnosed with Asperger syndrome did not have significant cognitive delays. PDD-NOS was considered "subthreshold autism" and "atypical autism" because it was often characterized by milder symptoms of autism or symptoms in only one domain (such as social difficulties).

The DSM-5 eliminated the four separate diagnoses: Asperger Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS), Childhood Degenerative Disorder, and Autistic Disorder and combined them under the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Late talker is a term used for exceptionally bright people who experience a delay in the development of speech. Commonalities include usually being boys, delayed speech development, highly educated parents, musically gifted families, puzzle-solving abilities, and lagging social development. Many high-achieving late talkers were notoriously strong willed and noncompliant as children. Late talkers can often be misdiagnosed early on as having severe ("low-functioning") autism spectrum disorder (a category known simply as "autism", prior to the DSM-5), and careful professional evaluation is necessary for differential diagnosis, according to Darold Treffert and other experts. One major difference between late talkers and low-functioning autistic children is that for late talkers, communication skills automatically reach a normal level and the child requires no further special treatment with regards to speech. Outlook for late talkers with or without intervention is generally favorable. However, late language emergence can also be an early or secondary sign of high-functioning autism spectrum disorder / Asperger syndrome, or other developmental disorders, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, intellectual disability, learning disability, social communication disorder, or specific language impairment.

Einstein syndrome, a term coined by the economist Thomas Sowell, is also sometimes used to describe late talkers. The term is named after Albert Einstein (often said to have been a late talker, though with questionable evidence), whom Sowell used as the primary example of a late talker in his work. Sowell also included Edward Teller, Srinivasa Ramanujan, the mathematician Julia Robinson, Richard Feynman, and the pianists Clara Schumann and Arthur Rubinstein to be in the late talkers group. As a toddler, the scientist John Clive Ward showed similar behavioral traits to those described by Sowell, according to a brief sketch of his biography.

Sowell claimed late talkers are often inaccurately categorized as having an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and that a small subset of late talkers are highly intelligent children with common characteristics concentrated in music, memory, math or the sciences. However, as reported by Simon Baron-Cohen, such characteristics are often found in high-functioning autism / Asperger syndrome.

Individuals with Asperger syndrome may have signs or symptoms that are independent of the diagnosis, but can affect the individual or the family. These include differences in perception and problems with motor skills, sleep, and emotions.

Individuals with AS often have excellent auditory and visual perception. Children with ASD often demonstrate enhanced perception of small changes in patterns such as arrangements of objects or well-known images; typically this is domain-specific and involves processing of fine-grained features. Conversely, compared with individuals with high-functioning autism, individuals with AS have deficits in some tasks involving visual-spatial perception, auditory perception, or visual memory. Many accounts of individuals with AS and ASD report other unusual sensory and perceptual skills and experiences. They may be unusually sensitive or insensitive to sound, light, and other stimuli; these sensory responses are found in other developmental disorders and are not specific to AS or to ASD. There is little support for increased fight-or-flight response or failure of habituation in autism; there is more evidence of decreased responsiveness to sensory stimuli, although several studies show no differences.

Hans Asperger's initial accounts and other diagnostic schemes include descriptions of physical clumsiness. Children with AS may be delayed in acquiring skills requiring motor dexterity, such as riding a bicycle or opening a jar, and may seem to move awkwardly or feel "uncomfortable in their own skin". They may be poorly coordinated, or have an odd or bouncy gait or posture, poor handwriting, or problems with visual-motor integration. They may show problems with proprioception (sensation of body position) on measures of developmental coordination disorder (motor planning disorder), balance, tandem gait, and finger-thumb apposition. There is no evidence that these motor skills problems differentiate AS from other high-functioning ASDs.

Children with AS are more likely to have sleep problems, including difficulty in falling asleep, frequent nocturnal awakenings, and early morning awakenings. AS is also associated with high levels of alexithymia, which is difficulty in identifying and describing one's emotions. Although AS, lower sleep quality, and alexithymia are associated, their causal relationship is unclear.

Dyslexia, also known as reading disorder, is characterized by trouble with reading despite normal intelligence. Different people are affected to varying degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, reading quickly, writing words, "sounding out" words in the head, pronouncing words when reading aloud and understanding what one reads. Often these difficulties are first noticed at school. When someone who previously could read loses their ability, it is known as alexia. The difficulties are involuntary and people with this disorder have a normal desire to learn.

Dyslexia is believed to be caused by both genetic and environmental factors. Some cases run in families. It often occurs in people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and is associated with similar difficulties with numbers. It may begin in adulthood as the result of a traumatic brain injury, stroke, or dementia. The underlying mechanisms of dyslexia are problems within the brain's language processing. Dyslexia is diagnosed through a series of tests of memory, spelling, vision, and reading skills. Dyslexia is separate from reading difficulties caused by hearing or vision problems or by insufficient teaching.

Treatment involves adjusting teaching methods to meet the person's needs. While not curing the underlying problem, it may decrease the degree of symptoms. Treatments targeting vision are not effective. Dyslexia is the most common learning disability and occurs in all areas of the world. It affects 3–7% of the population, however, up to 20% may have some degree of symptoms. While dyslexia is more often diagnosed in men, it has been suggested that it affects men and women equally. Some believe that dyslexia should be best considered as a different way of learning, with both benefits and downsides.

In early childhood, symptoms that correlate with a later diagnosis of dyslexia include delayed onset of speech and a lack of phonological awareness, as well as being easily distracted by background noise. A common myth closely associates dyslexia with mirror writing and reading letters or words backwards. These behaviors are seen in many children as they learn to read and write, and are not considered to be defining characteristics of dyslexia.

School-age children with dyslexia may exhibit signs of difficulty in identifying or generating rhyming words, or counting the number of syllables in words – both of which depend on phonological awareness. They may also show difficulty in segmenting words into individual sounds or may blend sounds when producing words, indicating reduced phonemic awareness. Difficulties with word retrieval or naming things is also associated with dyslexia. People with dyslexia are commonly poor spellers, a feature sometimes called dysorthographia or dysgraphia, which depends on orthographic coding.

Problems persist into adolescence and adulthood and may accompany difficulties with summarizing stories, memorization, reading aloud, or learning foreign languages. Adults with dyslexia can often read with good comprehension, though they tend to read more slowly than others without a learning difficulty and perform worse in spelling tests or when reading nonsense words – a measure of phonological awareness.

As a pervasive developmental disorder, Asperger syndrome is distinguished by a pattern of symptoms rather than a single symptom. It is characterized by qualitative impairment in social interaction, by stereotyped and restricted patterns of behavior, activities and interests, and by no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or general delay in language. Intense preoccupation with a narrow subject, one-sided verbosity, restricted prosody, and physical clumsiness are typical of the condition, but are not required for diagnosis. Suicidal behavior appears to occur at rates similar to those without ASD.

Autism spectrum disorders are thought to follow two possible developmental courses, although most parents report that symptom onset occurred within the first year of life. One course of development is more gradual in nature, in which parents report concerns in development over the first two years of life and diagnosis is made around 3–4 years of age. Some of the early signs of ASDs in this course include decreased looking at faces, failure to turn when name is called, failure to show interests by showing or pointing, and delayed pretend play.

A second course of development is characterized by normal or near-normal development followed by loss of skills or regression in the first 2–3 years. Regression may occur in a variety of domains, including communication, social, cognitive, and self-help skills; however, the most common regression is loss of language.

There continues to be a debate over the differential outcomes based on these two developmental courses. Some studies suggest that regression is associated with poorer outcomes and others report no differences between those with early gradual onset and those who experience a regression period. While there is conflicting evidence surrounding language outcomes in ASD, some studies have shown that cognitive and language abilities at age may help predict language proficiency and production after age 5. Overall, the literature stresses the importance of early intervention in achieving positive longitudinal outcomes.

Considered to be neurologically based, nonverbal learning disorder is characterized by verbal strengths as well as visual-spatial, motor, and social skills difficulties. People with this disorder may not at times comprehend nonverbal cues such as facial expression or tone of voice. Challenges with mathematics and handwriting are common.

While various nonverbal impairments were recognized since early studies in child neurology, there is ongoing debate as to whether/or the extent to which existing conceptions of NLD provide a valid diagnostic framework. As originally presented "nonverbal disabilities" (p. 44) or "disorders of nonverbal learning" (p. 272) was a category encompassing non-linguistic learning problems (Johnson and Myklebust, 1967). "Nonverbal learning disabilities" were further discussed by Myklebust in 1975 as representing a subtype of learning disability with a range of presentations involving "mainly visual cognitive processing," social imperception, a gap between higher verbal ability and lower performance IQ, as well as difficulty with handwriting. Later neuropsychologist Byron Rourke sought to develop consistent criteria with a theory and model of brain functioning that would establish NLD as a distinct syndrome (1989).

Questions remain about how best to frame the perceptual, cognitive and motor issues associated with NLD.

The DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) and ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases) do not include NLD as a diagnosis.

Assorted diagnoses have been discussed as sharing symptoms with NLD—these conditions include Right hemisphere brain damage and Developmental Right Hemisphere Syndrome, Developmental Coordination Disorder, Social-Emotional Processing Disorder, Asperger syndrome, Gerstmann syndrome and others.

Labels for specific associated issues include visual-spatial deficit, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, as well as dyspraxia.

In their 1967 book "Learning Disabilities; Educational Principles and Practices", Doris J. Johnson and Helmer R. Myklebust characterize how someone with these kinds of disabilities appears in a classroom: "An example is the child who fails to learn the meaning of the actions of others...We categorize this child as having a deficiency in social perception, meaning that he has an inability which precludes acquiring the significance of basic nonverbal aspects of daily living, though his verbal level of intelligence falls within or above the average." (p. 272). In their chapter "Nonverbal Disorders Of Learning" (p. 272-306) are sections titled "Learning Though Pictures," (274) "Gesture," (281) "Nonverbal Motor Learning," (282) "Body Image," (285) "Spatial Orientation," (290) "Right-Left Orientation," (292) "Social Imperception," (295) "Distractibility, Perseveration, and Disinhibition." (298)

Deficits in any area of information processing can manifest in a variety of specific learning disabilities. It is possible for an individual to have more than one of these difficulties. This is referred to as comorbidity or co-occurrence of learning disabilities. In the UK, the term "dual diagnosis" is often used to refer to co-occurrence of learning difficulties.

Hyperlexic children are characterized by word-reading ability well above what would be expected given their ages and IQs. Hyperlexia can be viewed as a superability in which word recognition ability goes far above expected levels of skill. However, in spite of few problems with decoding, comprehension is poor. Some hyperlexics also have trouble understanding speech. Most or perhaps all children with hyperlexia lie on the autism spectrum. Between 5–10% of autistic children have been estimated to be hyperlexic.

Mental retardation is coded on Axis II of the DSM-IV-TR. The diagnostic criteria necessary in order to diagnose intellectual disability consists of:

There are varying degrees of intellectual disability, which are identified by an IQ test.

Mental retardation, Severity Unspecified: This unspecified diagnosis is given when there is a strong assumption that the child is mentally retarded, but cannot be tested because the individual is too impaired, not willing to take the IQ test or is an infant.

As an infant, the individual with intellectual disability might sit up, crawl, or walk later than what is developmentally appropriate. He or she may have trouble talking or learn to talk late. The infant with intellectual disability will probably have trouble learning to potty train, feeding himself or herself, remembering things, with problem-solving, and may have recurrent explosive tantrums.

Some symptoms that a child with intellectual disability might show are continued infant-like behavior, a lack of curiosity, the inability to meet educational demands, learning ability that is below average, and the failure to meet developmentally appropriate intellectual goals. Some children with severe intellectual disability may have seizures, mobility problems, vision problem, or hearing problems.

Dyslexia is a learning disability that manifests itself as a difficulty with word decoding and/or reading fluency. Comprehension may be affected as a result of difficulties with decoding, but is not a primary feature of dyslexia. It is separate and distinct from reading difficulties resulting from other causes, such as a non-neurological deficiency with vision or hearing, or from poor or inadequate reading instruction. It is estimated that dyslexia affects between 5–17% of the population. Dyslexia has been proposed to have three cognitive subtypes (auditory, visual and attentional), although individual cases of dyslexia are better explained by the underlying neuropsychological deficits and co-occurring learning disabilities (e.g. attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, math disability, etc.). Although not an intellectual disability, it is considered both a learning disability and a reading disability.

Dyslexia and IQ are not interrelated, since reading and cognition develop independently in individuals who have dyslexia."Nerve problems can cause damage to the control of eye muscles which can also cause diplopia" (WEBMD, 2005)

When structural impairments are not observable or do not exist, neurological impairments are assessed. In the context of FASD, neurological impairments are caused by prenatal alcohol exposure which causes general neurological damage to the central nervous system (CNS), the peripheral nervous system, or the autonomic nervous system. A determination of a neurological problem must be made by a trained physician, and must not be due to a postnatal insult, such as a high fever, concussion, traumatic brain injury, etc.

All four diagnostic systems show virtual agreement on their criteria for CNS damage at the neurological level, and evidence of a CNS neurological impairment due to prenatal alcohol exposure will result in a diagnosis of FAS or pFAS, and functional impairments are highly likely.

Neurological problems are expressed as either hard signs, or diagnosable disorders, such as epilepsy or other seizure disorders, or soft signs. Soft signs are broader, nonspecific neurological impairments, or symptoms, such as impaired fine motor skills, neurosensory hearing loss, poor gait, clumsiness, poor eye-hand coordination. Many soft signs have norm-referenced criteria, while others are determined through clinical judgment. "Clinical judgment" is only as good as the clinician, and soft signs should be assessed by either a pediatric neurologist, a pediatric neuropsychologist, or both.

Disorder of written expression is a type of learning disability in which a person’s writing ability falls substantially below normally expected range based on the individual’s age, educational background, and measured intelligence. Poor writing skills must interfere significantly with academic progress or daily activities that involves written expression (spelling, grammar, handwriting, punctuation, word usage, etc.). This disorder is also generally concurrent with disorders of reading and/or mathematics, as well as disorders related to behavior. Since it is so often associated with other learning disorders and mental problems, it is uncertain whether it can appear by itself. The prevalence of disorder of written expression is estimated to be of a similar frequency to other learning disorders, between 3 - 5%. A diagnosis can be made based on results of several assessments.