Changing Attitudes and Prejudices about Mental Retardation

As it became widely accepted that mental retardation was something that occurred for natural, medical reasons and not because someone was being punished by God, the nature of prejudice against people with mental retardation shifted from an attitude of active rejection towards an attitude of compassionate rejection. Author Wolf Wolfensberger points out that at a certain point, people began considering the mentally retarded population as objects of pity, or as people who were ill and requiring treatment, rather than as outright abominations. These attitudes were an improvement upon the active disdain and persecution of previous centuries, but continued to perpetuate damaging stereotypes concerning the mentally retarded population, such as that they were either unhelpable (and thus simple objects of charity or a burden upon society), or that they were ill and required treatment. This latter view seems charitable until you consider that much of the treatment consisted of quarantine-style segregation from mainstream society, and that the label of patient was in its own right fairly disempowering in that it suggested that retarded individuals were more limited and helpless than many actually are. Retarded individuals who are regarded with pity are never challenged to develop what capabilities and capacities they do have, and thus tend not to achieve their full potentials. The idea of retarded individuals as objects of pity is still very much with us today, and is reflected in the use of "poster children" to promote awareness of mental retardation.

Another historical social role retarded people have been forced into - the most romantic of the lot, and an alternative to the modern conception of retarded people as objects of pity or as ill people - is the role of "eternal children or holy innocents." This role conception is similar to the "objects of pity" conception and shares the same faults, namely that when this view is widely shared, retarded individuals tend not to be challenged to learn or develop their capabilities, but instead are left to their own devices. Under this view, mentally retarded individuals are never seen as adults or capable of becoming adults and expectations for development and growth are small. This perception looks to the individual as one who needs protection from society rather than someone who is capable of becoming a productive part of society. The holy innocent is not held accountable for his actions.

Paving the Way to the Modern Conception of Mental Retardation

In the last hundred or so years, advances in the fields of intelligence testing and genetics have made the medical basis for mental retardation undisputedly clear, and have provided a measurement technology capable of accurately distinguishing levels of functioning within the retarded population. Along with the advent of learning theory (the major achievement of behavioral psychology), these advances have made it possible to provide retarded individuals with truly helpful training, education, and support services matched to their actual abilities. The availability of useful training and support services, in turn, has made it possible to enable mentally retarded individuals to reach their true potential and to function better within mainstream society.