Rehabilitation Management of Mentally Retarded Amongst Physically Disabled

The one having physical or mental disability,more often than not, becomes a parasite on thefamily and the community making life a miserable,experience. In the life pattern of developedcountries, disabled today have become aproductive member of the society and can lookback on their life with satisfaction. In contrast, intraditional societies like India, due to low aconomyconflict with ignorance, the disabled have yet tofind a place in the mainstream of social life, awayfrom the usual occupation of begging.Mental retardation refers to subaveragegeneral intellectual functioning which originatesduring the development period and is associatedwith impairment in adaptive behaviour. Thementally retarded from childhood experiencesunusual difficulties in learning which affects hiscapacities for adjustment in day to day living.General intellectual functioning means the resultsobtained by administration of standardized generalintelligence tests for the purpose. The significantsubaverage is defined as I.Q. of 70 or below onthe standardized scale of intelligence. The adaptivebehaviour is defined as the degree with which theindividual meets the standards of personalindependence and social responsibility in relationto his age and cultural environment. Theexpectation of adaptive behaviour vary with thechronological age. The deficits in adaptivebehaviour may be reflected in the three areas i.e.during infancy and early childhood, duringchildhood and adolescence and during lateadolesdence and adulthood.(a) During infancy and early childhood in- Development of sensory and motorskills- communication skills (speech andlanguage)- Self help skills- socialization.(b) During childhood and adolescence in- use of basic academic skills toactivities of daily life.- application of reasoning andjudgement in the mastery ofenvironment.- use of social skills(c) During late adolescence and adulthood in- vocational performances and socialresponsibilities.