Heidi Cone, age 13, of Staten Island, N.Y., for her question:
HOW EARLY CAN YOU TELL IF A CHILD IS MENTALLY RETARDED?
Doctors think about mental retardation before a child is born. Proper care should be given to a prospective mother both before and during pregnancy. Then special precautions should be taken to assure a proper delivery with intensive care of a sick or premature infant being available to offer more protection. Special diets and medication is also important at this time.
Mental retardation is a human condition where subnormal intellectual and social development is present. About 3 percent of the people in North America suffer some degree of retardation.
It isn't always known right at birth that a baby is mentally retarded. Mild retardation is often not recognized until after a child starts attending school and then fails to learn easily or to fit into a pattern of social growth and development.
Some seriously retarded children, on the other hand, are quickly identified since often they are slow to talk, walk or even sit up. Mental retardation can also be detected as a result of a very early display of physical handicaps.
Not too long ago parents were advised to place retarded children in special institutions. Now, however, doctors feel that all but the very seriously retarded can greatly benefit by living an almost normal life with their family. By the 1970s, less than 4 percent of the mentally retarded children were living in institutions.
Do you have a mentally retarded member of your family? Or do you have a close friend or relative who has a retarded family member? Then you know great patience and understanding is necessary to help in caring for the retarded person.
While a person who is mentally retarded cannot be cured, there is much that can be done to help him in his intellectual and social development. Most can learn to function well within the limits of their abilities.
As a retarded child grows older, his education is usually directed more and more toward perfecting the skills he will need as an adult. Most can become excellent workers and good citizens. In fact, almost every retarded person can usually be directed to fit into a good life and do productive work.
Mental retardation can be the result of either inherited conditions or environmental factors. Among the environmental causes are those events that can happen at the time of birth. Mental retardation can result from such things as brain infection, head injury, prolonged high fever, swallowing concentrated poisonous substances or the interruption of breathing for a time.