Problems of Girls and Young Women with Mental Retardation (Intellectual Disabilities)

The issues of girls and young women—or even of sex differences in general—within mental retardation are woefully underexplored. To this day, we continue to lack even the most basic information about the course, associated features, and links of mental retardation to emotional or behavioral problems or other psychiatric diagnoses in girls. In specific areas, researchers and practitioners are uncertain whether the “usual” sexdifference findings concerning behavioral or emotional problems also show themselves when children have intellectual disabilities. Yet at the same time, we have enough glimmerings to proclaim the importance of this area for future work.