A Social, Multidisciplinary View of Developmental Disabilities
Few tasks are as demanding as the professional need to determine the nature of a child or adult who is having difficulty functioning in the school or home environment. Physicians and educators find that people may fail in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons, and the individual diagnostician faces quite a formidable task in determining the facts in even the simplest of cases (Wodrich & Joy, 1986, p. 1). It is the purpose of this paper to discuss in a general way the interdisciplinary approach to developmental disabilities and to provide a social perspective on the difficulties of persons who fail to thrive in the demands of their lives.
Historically, the concept of mental retardation arose out of a social need, the need for wealthy families to protect their property rights. In England, the King's Act of 1324 proclaimed that individuals who could not manage their own affairs were designated as "idiots," a legal term, and their property was held by the Crown until later assumed by heirs (Wodrich & Joy, 1986, p. 3). Inability to meet life's demands was the first attribute in the concept of mental retardation. Idiocy was assumed to be congenital and permanent, and "lunacy" was a term used to indicate mental conditions that were assumed to be transient. The common denominator between the two limitations was deficient mental ability.
Modern readers may find those terms offensive, but it is important to recognize that, at first, they were not used in a pejorative sense. In the 19th and early 20th century various definitions of mental retardation arose. Quite simply, individuals who fail to meet environmental demands are termed mentally retarded. The specifics of the deficits in adaptive behavior may include low intelligence test scores, adaptive delays, and lack of personal independence or social responsibility that would be expected of someone in hi...