Down Syndrome In Children

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‘’Down syndrome is a type of mental retardation caused by extra genetic material in chromosome 21’’(1). In the beginning, children with Down syndrome were referred as “mongoloids” because they looked like people from Mongolia but, the term was changed to Down’s syndrome. Down’s Syndrome named after John Langdon Down, the man who first described it (2). Down syndrome due to a genetic cause and it has more than one type and characteristics.

Every cell in the human body contains genetic material stored in genes that carry inherited traits that are grouped in structures called chromosomes. The nucleus of each cell contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, half of which are inherited from each parent. People unaffected by any chromosomal condition are born with 46 chromosomes in each cell (22 pairs plus 2 sex chromosomes). After conception, the fertilized egg begins to divide. Each new cell will have a matching set of chromosomes and each cell will have the same genetic code as the first cell. In Down syndrome the chromosomes in the very early cells do not pair off correctly, and the baby begins to develop with 47 chromosomes. Down syndrome is caused when an embryo has three copies of chromosome 21 instead of two. Three copies of the chromosome can be due to a procedure called …show more content…

The large tongue problem affects the ability of talking, for instance, a baby will start vocalize his first word at the age of 11 to 15 months while the normal baby starts saying “ba-ba-ba”, ma-ma” (babbles) (4). Down syndrome forms are varying in proportion of incidence and process of attaching the

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