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Dinesh Kumar, Lovely Professional University Unit 14: Identification: Causes, Problems of Mentally Retarted

Unit 14: Identification: Causes, Problems of Mentally Notes

Retarted

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
14.1 Identification of MR Children
14.2 Causes of Mental Retardation
14.3 Problems of MR Children
14.4 Summary
14.6 Keywords
14.7 Review Questions
14.8 Further Readings

Objectives

The objectives of this unit can be summarized as below:
• to know about the identification of MR children.
• to explain and causes and problems of mental retardation.

Introduction

Mental retardation has been known for centuries and different terms have been used to explain it.
Early in the twentieth century, the terms moron, imbecile and idiot explained the three levels of
retardation. During the 1940s the term feeble-minded was used. In recent years terms like mental
subnormality’and ‘developmental disability’ are being used.
Until the twentieth century, retardation was defined in terms of an individual’s inability to meet the
minimal demands of society. In 1905 Alfred Binet developed a method of identifying students who
could be expected to fail in the regular school curriculum and who therefore required a special
instructional programme, which was translated and used in the USA by Henry Herbert Goddard.
Terman’s 1916 edition of the Standord Binet Intelligence Scale was quickly adopted as standardized,
objective, norm-referenced way of identifying retarded children. I.Q. became standard for classification
of mental retardation. However, David Wechsler, who devised a series of intelligence tests, warned
against the rigid use of intelligence test scores as the sole criterion for diagnosing retardation.
This definition was subsequently restated as: “Mental retardation refers to significantly sub-average
general intellectual functioning, resulting in or associated with, concurrent impairments in adaptive
behaviour and manifested during the developmental period.” Tins definition has three aspects:
(1) Sub-average intellectual functioning.
(2) Developmental in origin, and
(3) Impairment in adaptive behaviour.
Mentally Retarded Children who function at different levels of retardation require different educational
programmes, curricula, methods, and materials. In recent years, differences observed among them
have led to the use of four levels: mild, moderate, severe, and profound retardation. The mild group,
which makes up approximately 75 to 80. IQ students in the EMR range are capable of learning basic
academic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. Most children can learn vocational skills.

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