Whom Do We Call Mentally Retarded?

This book is about people, people referred to as being mentally retarded. Through the centuries much has been said about them, about their being dangerous, evil, possessed, or, to the contrary, special gifts from Heaven, "holy innocents." Many of these beliefs live on. One can encounter them even today almost anywhere in the United States as plans are discussed for community residences for mentally retarded persons. Yet mentally retarded individuals have lived in our communities since time immemorial. Over the past decades many of them have gone to public schools, not by the thousands, but by the millions; in increasing numbers they are employed in business, industry and government. They travel by bus and subway, go to ball games and movies, and some even vote at the polls. This is not an idealized picture, but it is just not a complete picture. Many mentally retarded individuals, severely and multiply-handicapped, whose functions and activities are extremely curtailed, spend their days in idleness in institutions. First, then, we must learn that being called mentally retarded has very little meaning. Mental retardation is not a very descriptive or revealing term; it cannot convey an adequate picture. There is too wide a difference between the retarded young adult who leaves his community residence in the morning, joining the subway crowd on his way to work, and another retarded person who spends his day in the ward of one of our large state institutions, idly shuffling about. In the face of such a wide range within the group considered to be mentally retarded, efforts have been made through the years to establish a terminology for the different degrees of this handicap. In the early part of this century people differentiated between idiots, imbeciles, and morons, depending on the extent of their mental retardation, with the moron being the least severely involved.