Resources for the Mentally Retarded Citizen: A Bibliographic Essay

ESSENTIALLY, THE TERM mental retardation refers to impaired intellectual functioning.Implicit in this definition is disordered development, impaired learning ability, and consequences of intellectual functioning below what is ordinarily considered to be normative for the culture in which the individual lives.A definition on mental retardation was adopted by the American Association of Mental Deficiency in 1961 and reaffirmed in 1973: "Mental retardation refers to significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior, and is manifested during the developmental period."'This definition specifies three vectors in the diagnosis of mental retardation: (1) general intellectual functioning which falls below that of 97 percent of the population (usually defined by scoreson standard psychological tests of intelligence), (2) impaired ability to adapt to and control one's environment (usually defined in terms of ability to learn, delayed or arrested maturation, and impaired social skills), and (3) impairment of development (impairment occurring in the period from conception to about sixteen years of age).Levels of retardation are usually assessed on the basis of psychological tests of intelligence, such as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, and the Wechsler Adult ~