Sexuality and Intellectual Disability

CASE: Amad is a wonderful 16-year-old young man from Syria who has recently relocated to the United States from his war-torn native country. In his last few years in Syria, he was primarily at home with his mother, and they sought refuge with a maternal aunt in the United States seeking asylum and treatment of Amad's disability. At 8 years of age, he had intelligence testing in the United Arab Emirates, which showed a verbal intelligence score on the Wechsler intelligence scale for children (WISC) of 68 and a performance of 64. His working memory was 67 and his processing speed was 65. On arrival in the United States, his achievement was roughly at a third-grade level in Arabic. In the year and a half that he has been in the United States, he quickly improved his English skills, which he learned as a toddler. His father remains in Syria unable to safely immigrate and his mother is raising him alone in the United States with the help of her sister. They come to you for an urgent care visit because Amad recently was accused of sexual harassment by two girls at his high school. He is in a substantially separate program but is included for lunch and technology. While in the computer laboratory, he repeatedly approached the girls and asks them to “date” him, and on 1 occasion sat behind 1 girl and repeatedly reached out to stroke her long blonde hair. His mother is distraught because she recently found out that Amad also has a Facebook page and had been attempting to contact t...
Source: Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics - Category: Child Development Tags: Challenging Case Source Type: research