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In this article we will discuss about the causes and problem of mental retardation.
“Mental deficiency is characterized by inadequate intellectual of functioning in adaptive, associative and learning power, yet sufficient with I.Q. over fifty (50) to become socially adequate and occupationally competent with the help of special education facilities.”
Causes of Mental Retardation:
Before we can decide what contribution we can make towards allination of this problem, we must have a knowledge of the various causative factors, realising that mentally retarded children are found in the families of the rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant. They appear in every race, every nation and every creed.
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Mental retardation has been traced to many causative factors which may work singly or in groups.
Some of these are:
1. High blood pressure, syphilis and severe nutritional deficiency in the mother during pregnancy.
2. The incompatible Rh factor in the parents.
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3. Unusually prolonged labour and abnormal conditions of delivery.
4. Unscrupulous and dangerous abortive measures.
5. Premature separation of the placenta.
6. Brain injury or injury to the cortex of the child as a result of fall or asphycia.
7. Hydrocephalic conditions.
8. Glandular disturbances in the child.
9. After-effects of such diseases as encephalitis, severe, typhetic, smallpox, meningitis, epilepsy; not properly looked after and treated.
10. Emotional starvation of the child as a result of his long isolation in early infancy from human contact or repressive and inhibiting treatment of the child in early months.
11. Other hereditary factors such as defects in the chromosomes.
The Problem for the Educationist:
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For the educationist the problem is easily stated yet un-avoid in its challenge, and immense in its implications. Whether lie chosen to be or not, the teacher is committed to a major role in helping the mentally retarded. All children in a social democracy are entitled, as a birthright, to be educated according to their ability, no matter how limited this may be.
In the mentally-retarded, we have a group of children who differ from ordinary children mainly in respect of impaired or defective mental functioning, as a result of which they are unable, and never will be able, to benefit from the kind of education which is provided in the ordinary school.
If they are to be aided and encouraged to develop the limited intellectual potential which they do possess then they will require some form of special educational treatment that takes full cognizance of their diminished capacity for learning. This means that we must be prepared to modify educational patterns or create new ones, to meet the needs of mentally-retarded children.
Nor is this problem a numerically small one. Such children probably comprise some two to three percent of the total child population. Exact figures for India are not available but those of Western countries may be taken as providing a fairly reliable guide to the dimensions of the problem facing us here.
At present in India the few existing schools and classes for the mentally- handicapped are making provision for a few hundred, whereas in reality the problem is not one of hundreds but lakhs. It is very clear therefore, that its eventual solution on a national scale will require much more than the pricking of public consciousness into an awareness of its existence.