06-05-2009, 12:57 AM
Palsy, of any sort, is a muscular problem. Cereberal Palsy is the name given to a condition that affects the neurons and motor links between the brain (hence cereberal) and various muscles of the body. So the problem is in the message center of the brain, not in the muscles that are carrying out the instructions.Mental retardation has to do with how the brain processes knowledge. If you've ever had freezing put in your mouth for dental work, you will remember how your tongue felt huge and numb, and when you tried to speak it was very hard to make the sounds come out the way you wanted them to. That's a very crude analogy of how Cereberal Palsy works, and when you talk to someone who has it, it sounds as though there was something wrong with their speech, but the problem isn't with their not knowing what to say, or how to say it, it's with getting that information from their brain to their mouth. Similarily, walking or using their hands is difficult, not because they don't know what to do, but because the brain mis-fires and doesn't send messages to the muscles in the proper time or order.None of this has anything to do with mental retardation. When you speak to someone who is mentally retarded, depending upon the degree of their retardation, they will speak like a young child. But they can speak quite understandably. They can also walk and use their hands reasonably well.It is a sad fact that most people with Cereberal Palsy have higher than average intelligence.Hope this helps to explain the differences.
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