The Problem of Mental Retardation

Abstract

Until recently, within the problem of mental retardation it has been the intellectual deficiency of a child, his feeble-mindedness, that has occupied the foreground as the basic feature. This is locked into the very definition of such children, who are habitually called mentally retarded or mentally deficient. All other sides of such a child’s personality are regarded as arising secondarily and as depending upon that basic intellectual defect. Many are inclined not even to see real distinctions between the affective and volitional spheres of these children and of normal children.