mental handicap

British  

noun

1. a general or specific intellectual disability, resulting directly or indirectly from injury to the brain or from abnormal neurological development

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Usage

Nowadays both mental handicap and mentally handicapped are considered to have inappropriate and negative connotations. The phrases learning difficulties and a person with learning difficulties are used instead

Other Word Forms

• mentally handicapped adjective

Example Sentences

He knows the value of higher education to the blind, and he will urge the pupils to fit themselves for college, reminding them that blindness is a physical, not a mental, handicap.

From Five Lectures on Blindness by Foley, Kate M.