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According to the 1994, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Ed. IV, (DSM-IV) ADHD is a Disruptive Behavior Disorder characterized by the presence of a set of chronic and impairing behavior patterns that display abnormal levels of inattention, hyperactivity, or their combination.Attention Deficit Disorder is a biologically based condition causing a persistent pattern of difficulties resulting in one or more of the the following behaviors: inattention hyperactivity impulsivity. Inattention - difficulty attending or focusing on a specific task. People with Attention Deficit Disorder may become distracted within a matter of minutes. Inattentive behavior may also cause difficulties with staying organized (e.g. losing things), keeping track of time, completing tasks, and making careless errors. Hyperactivity - difficulty inhibiting behavior. These people are in constant motion. They may engage in excessive fiddling, leg swinging, and squirming in their chair. Impulsivity - difficulty controlling impulses. These people do not stop and think before they act. They say and do whatever comes into their mind without thinking about the consequences. They might say something inappropriate and regret it later, blurt out a response to question before a person is done speaking to them, or have difficulty waiting for their turn in line.

A person who has had one or more limbs removed by amputation

Apraxia is a neurological disorder characterized by loss of the ability to execute or carry out learned purposeful movements, despite having the desire and the physical ability to perform the movements. It is a disorder of motor planning which may be acquired or developmental, but may not be caused by incoordination, sensory loss, or failure to comprehend simple commands (which can be tested by asking the person tested to recognize the correct movement from a series).

Auditory integration training: An experimental procedure for reducing painful hypersensitivity to sound. It has proved beneficial for some people with autism and other neuropsychiatric disorders.

Autism is defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is the name given to describe the wide range of behaviours amongst the Autistic population. Children with autism are less able to interact with the world as other children do. Typically they have deficits in three key areas: Verbal and non-verbal Communication, Social awareness and interactions Imaginative play (variable interests and behaviours). There are separate labels given to children with autism for different points on the Autism spectrum. At the least affected end, you may find labels such as "Asperger's Syndrome", "High Functioning Autism" and "Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified" (PDD-NOS). At the other end of the spectrum you may find labels such as "Autism", "Classic Autism" and "Kanner Autism".

1. Any of various forms of behavior that are considered inappropriate by members of the social group to which an individual belongs. 2. A functional disorder or abnormality.

Bipolar disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated mood clinically referred to as mania or, if milder, hypomania. Individuals who experience manic episodes also commonly experience depressive episodes or symptoms, or mixed episodes in which features of both mania and depression are present at the same time. These episodes are usually separated by periods of "normal" mood, but in some individuals, depression and mania may rapidly alternate, known as rapid cycling. Extreme manic episodes can sometimes lead to psychotic symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations. The disorder has been subdivided into bipolar I, bipolar II, cyclothymia, and other types, based on the nature and severity of mood episodes experienced; the range is often described as the bipolar spectrum.

One statutory definition of "brain injury" is: Any injury to the brain regardless of age at onset, whether mechanical or infectious in origin including brain trauma, brain damage and traumatic head injury the results of which are expected to continue indefinitely which constitutes a substantial handicap to the individual, and which directly results in any one or more of the following. 1. Attention impairment 2. Cognition impairment 3. Language impairment 4. Memory impairment 5. Conduct disorder 6. Motor disorder 7. Any other neurological dysfunction

Cancer is a group of diseases characterized by uncontrolled cell division leading to growth of abnormal tissue. It is believed that cancers arise from both genetic and environmental factors that lead to aberrant growth regulation of a stem cell population, or by the dedifferentiation of more mature cell types.Cell multiplication (proliferation) is a normal physiologic process that occurs in almost all tissues and under many circumstances, such as response to injury, immune responses, or to replace cells that have died or have been shed as a part of their lifecycle (in tissues such as skin or the mucous membranes of the digestive tract). Normally the balance between proliferation and cell death is tightly regulated to ensure the integrity of organs and tissues. Mutations in DNA that lead to cancer appear to disrupt these orderly processes.The uncontrolled and often rapid proliferation of cells can lead to either a benign tumor or a malignant tumor (cancer). Benign tumors do not spread to other parts of the body or invade other tissues, and they are rarely a threat to life. Malignant tumors can invade other organs, spread to distant locations (metastasize) and become life threatening.

Cerebral palsy is a term used to describe a group of chronic conditions affecting body movements and muscle coordination. It is caused by damage to one or more specific areas of the brain, usually occurring during fetal development, or during infancy. It can also occur before, during or shortly following birth. "Cerebral" refers to the brain and "Palsy" to a disorder of movement or posture. If someone has cerebral palsy it means that because of an injury to their brain (cerebral) they are not able to use some of the muscles in their body in the normal way (palsy). Children with cerebral palsy may not be able to walk, talk, eat or play in the same ways as most other children.

Diabetes is a chronic disease involving abnormalities in the body's ability to use sugar. Diabetes is characterized by: Elevated blood sugars for months to years. Both hereditary and environmental factors leading to its development and progression. A relative or absolute deficiency of effective circulating insulin. Insulin is a substance made by the pancreas which lowers blood sugar in conjunction with meals. Diabetes is characterized by either: (1) an inability of the pancreas to produce insulin (type 1 or insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus) or an inability of insulin to exert its normal physiological actions (type 2 or non-insulin dependent diabetes). Often recognized in patients and their families by excessive urination, thirst, weight loss and/or a lack of energy. But diabetes is often silent and may exist for many years without the individual's noticing it. Effects certain "target tissues," that is, tissues which are vulnerable to the damaging effects of chronically high blood sugar levels. These target tissues are the eye, the kidney, the nerves and the large blood vessels, such as in the heart.

A person with Down's syndrome has an extra copy of one of the chromosomes, which results in mental retardation, as well as other symptoms. Chromosomes contain genetic material that directs the actions of cells. Normally, human cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes, resulting in 46 chromosomes. One of each pair comes from the mother, and one of each pair comes from the father. Down's syndrome describes the symptoms and signs displayed by someone who has an extra 21st chromosome, which results in 47 total chromosomes. In the US, about 1 out of 1,000 infants is born with Down's syndrome.

Dyslexia is a learning disability that manifests primarily as a difficulty with written language, particularly with reading and spelling. 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. Evidence also suggests that dyslexia results from differences in how the brain processes written and/or spoken language. Although dyslexia is thought to be the result of a neurological difference, it is not an intellectual disability. Dyslexia has been diagnosed in people of all levels of intelligence.

Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder that is characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures.[1][2] These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms due to abnormal, excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain.[3] About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy at any one time.[4] Epilepsy is usually controlled, but not cured, with medication, although surgery may be considered in difficult cases. However, over 30% of people with epilepsy do not have seizure control even with the best available medications [5][6]. Not all epilepsy syndromes are lifelong some forms are confined to particular stages of childhood. Epilepsy should not be understood as a single disorder, but rather as a group of syndromes with vastly divergent symptoms but all involving episodic abnormal electrical activity in the brain

Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is a disorder of permanent birth defects that occurs in the offspring of women who drink alcohol during pregnancy. It is unknown whether amount, frequency or timing of alcohol consumption during pregnancy causes a difference in degree of damage done to the fetus. Alcohol crosses the placental barrier and can stunt fetal growth or weight, create distinctive facial stigmata, damage neurons and brain structures, and cause other physical, mental, or behavioral problems.

Fragile X syndrome, or Martin-Bell syndrome, is a genetic syndrome which results in a spectrum of characteristic physical, intellectual, emotional and behavioural features which range from severe to mild in manifestation. The syndrome is associated with the expansion of a single trinucleotide gene sequence (CGG) on the X chromosome, and results in a failure to express the FMR-1 protein which is required for normal neural development. There are four generally accepted forms of Fragile X syndrome which relate to the length of the repeated CGG sequence; Normal (29-31 CGG repeats), Premutation (55-200 CGG repeats), Full Mutation (more than 200 CGG repeats), and Intermediate or Gray Zone Alleles (40 - 60 repeats).[1]

In the United States and Canada, the term learning disability (LD) refers to a group of disorders that affect a broad range of academic and functional skills including the ability to speak, listen, read, write, spell, reason and organize information. A learning disability is not indicative of low intelligence. Indeed, research indicates that some people with learning disabilities may have average or above-average intelligence. Causes of learning disabilities include a deficit in the brain that affects the processing of information.

The World Health Organization defines mental health as ""a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.[3] It was previously stated that there was no one "official" definition of mental health. Cultural differences, subjective assessments, and competing professional theories all affect how "mental health" is defined.[4]

The World Health Organization defines mental health as ""a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.[3] It was previously stated that there was no one "official" definition of mental health. Cultural differences, subjective assessments, and competing professional theories all affect how "mental health" is defined.[4]

Prader-Willi syndrome (abbreviated PWS) is a very rare genetic disorder, in which seven genes (or some subset thereof) on chromosome 15 are missing or unexpressed (chromosome 15q partial deletion) on the paternal chromosome. It was first described in 1956 by Andrea Prader, Heinrich Willi, Alexis Labhart, Andrew Ziegler, and Guido Fanconi of Switzerland.[1] The incidence of PWS is between 1 in 12,000 and 1 in 15,000 live births. The distinction of chromosome by parental origin is due to imprinting and PWS has the sister syndrome Angelman syndrome that affects maternally imprinted genes in the region.

A disorder affecting the ability to produce normal speech. Speech disorders may affect articulation (phonetic or phonological disorders); fluency (stuttering or cluttering); and/or voice (tone, pitch, volume, or speed). Most speech disorders have their roots in oral-motor differences, although some involve language processing problems. Diagnosis is by testing by a speech pathologist. Treatment is by speech therapy.

Spina bifida (Latin: "split spine") is a developmental birth defect involving the neural tube: incomplete closure of the embryonic neural tube results in an incompletely formed spinal cord. In addition, the vertebrae overlying the open portion of the spinal cord do not fully form and remain unfused and open. This allows the abnormal portion of the spinal cord to stick out through the opening in the bones. There may or may not be a fluid filled sac surrounding the open spinal cord. Other neural tube defects include anencephaly, a condition in which the portion of the neural tube which will become the cerebrum does not close, and encephalocele, which results when other parts of the brain remain unfused.

Spinal cord injury causes myelopathy or damage to white matter or myelinated fiber tracts that carry sensation and motor signals to and from the brain. [1][2] It also damages gray matter in the central part of the spine, causing segmental losses of interneurons and motorneurons. Spinal cord injury can occur from many causes, including: Trauma such as automobile crashes, falls, gunshots, diving accidents, war injuries, etc. Tumor such as meningiomas, ependymomas, astrocytomas, and metastatic cancer. Ischemia resulting from occlusion of spinal blood vessels, including dissecting aortic aneurysms, emboli, arteriosclerosis. Developmental disorders, such as spina bifida, meningomyolcoele, and other. Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Friedreich's ataxia, spinocerebellar ataxia, etc. Demyelinative diseases, such as Multiple Sclerosis. Transverse myelitis, resulting from spinal cord stroke, inflammation, or other causes. Vascular malformations, such as arteriovenous malformation (AVM), dural arteriovenous fistula (AVF), spinal hemangioma, cavernous angioma and aneurysm

Substance abuse is the overindulgence in and dependence of a drug or other chemical leading to effects that are detrimental to the individual's physical and mental health, or the welfare of others. The disorder is characterized by a pattern of continued pathological use of a medication, non-medically indicated drug or toxin, that results in repeated adverse social consequences related to drug use, such as failure to meet work, family, or school obligations, interpersonal conflicts, or legal problems. There are on-going debates as to the exact distinctions between substance abuse and substance dependence, but current practice standard distinguishes between the two by defining substance dependence in terms of physiological and behavioral symptoms of substance use, and substance abuse in terms of the social consequences of substance use.

Tourette syndrome (also called Tourette's syndrome, Tourette's disorder, Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, GTS or, more commonly, simply Tourette's or TS) is an inherited neuropsychiatric disorder with onset in childhood, characterized by the presence of multiple physical (motor) tics and at least one vocal (phonic) tic; these tics characteristically wax and wane. Tourette's is defined as part of a spectrum of tic disorders, which includes transient and chronic tics.

Visual impairment or vision impairment is vision loss(of a person) having reduced vision as to constitute a handicap that constitutes a significant limitation of visual capability resulting from disease, trauma, or a congenital or degenerative condition that cannot be corrected by conventional means, including refractive correction, medication, or surgery.[1][2][3] This functional loss of vision is typically defined to manifest with best corrected visual acuity of less than 20/60, or significant central field defect, significant peripheral field defect including homonymous or heteronymous bilateral visual, field defect or generalized contraction or constriction of field, or reduced peak contrast sensitivity either of the above conditions