As in: Often you can determine an adult person who has the mental ability of a child from their face without talking to them. It’s not that they look bad!
In: Biology
Conversely, I feel like sometimes I can 100% tell that someone is very smart by looking at their face. I wonder why that is.
Another reason that hasn’t been mentioned is facial expressions. A lot of mental disorders will also result in emotional/social issues, so sufferers will often have ‘inappropriate’ facial expressions. E.g blank looks, constant smiling or lack of eye contact. This will be obvious to others and make it clear a person has a serious mental illness.
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I’ll use this quote to answer your question as once I had the same question as you!
*A lot of mental disabilities are part of growth disorders. Before I go any further, I want to make it quite clear that it is possible to have a growth disorder, like many forms of dwarfism, and not have one’s intelligence affected at all, and it is also possible to be mentally retarded, and not have a growth disorder, but oftentimes, the two do go together. Both Down Syndrome and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome are growth disorders. DS is a growth disorder that involves growth stopping too soon— it’s the reason that sometimes heart valves don’t close, and the esophagus does not meet the stomach, as well as the reason the hand is missing a crease, and people with DS are short, and it is the reason some brain structures do not develop correctly. Which ones is kind of a crapshoot, which is why the mental capacities of people with DS vary so widely. The 21st chromosome is the one that codes for the enzyme that keeps us from growing out of control (a very rare condition of transposition of the 21st chromosome can cause a person to be unusually tall). FAS involves poor oxygenation of the fetus, because alcohol interferes with all sorts of prenatal processes. It isn’t fully understood, but like a flame that is small because it is air-deprived, fetuses very much need oxygen.*
*Now, some people are deprived of oxygen briefly, but severely, at birth, can have problems with mental capacity without any effects on their appearance, but that is because a brief deprivation of oxygen can starve and kill off parts of the brain, while being much less serious for other parts of the body. FAS is more of a slow, minimal deprivation over time. People with FAS, like people with DS, have small midfaces, and are short, along with having problems with mental capacity.*
*A lot of other syndromes that include mental retardation, and which are either chromosomal or genetic, or involve an exposure to something in utero, are essentially growth disorders, and the brain is just one part of the body that fails to grow properly, along with certain parts of the face or head that cause a distinctive look.*
*One thing to remember though, is that even when people have a “look” to their disability, they are still individuals. People with a syndrome usually have more in common with other people than they do with people who happen to vaguely resemble them due to some accident of a chromosomal mutation. People who have facial features in common due to a genetic condition don’t necessarily have more in common, regarding temperament or personal preferences, than people who have some other unusual feature, like red hair, or dichromatic eyes.*
I was at work one day and I saw a lady who had some features associated with having down syndrome but she did not. Then I saw her child who had down syndrome and I found that interesting. Does a carrier of the gene always show features associated with down sydrome?
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