MR 67: 

A first report to the President on the nation’s progress and 

remaining great needs in the campaign to combat mental 

retardation 
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office 

Washington, D.C., 20402 - Price 50 cents 
President’s Committee on Mental Retardation 

Washington, D.C. 20201 

June 30, 1967 

Dear Mr. President: 

I have the honor to transmit the first report of the President's 

Committee on Mental Retardation. 

During its first year, the Committee has charted the progress made in our 

nationwide effort to combat mental retardation and identified directions in 

which that effort must move in the immediate future in order to maintain 

its momentum and accomplishment. 

This report will be followed by papers describing in detail the 

state of various aspects of mental retardation programming, and 

identifying trends and areas in which needs exist and further study is 

indicated. 

The Committee's widely representative citizen membership enabled it to draw upon the 

information, experience and resource support of government and private organizations in 

charting fresh approaches to mental retardation needs. 

The Committee is deeply grateful for your continuing interest, encouragement and guidance. 

Respectfully yours, 

John W. Gardner 

Chairman 

The President 

The White House 

Washington, D. C. 

MR. PRESIDENT: 

MENTAL RETARDATION BY CAUSE 

CLASSIFICATION OF THE MENTALLY RETARDED POPULATION 

THIS is a report about six million special Americans for whom—and for whose families 

—our national accomplishment has been great . . . and far too little. 

THE six million are the nation's mentally retarded. They are as many as the combined 

populations of Maine, Oregon, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Wyoming. They are as 

many people as live in Los Angeles and Chicago together. Their number would make 12 

Indianapolises, 24 Wichitas, 48 Winston-Salems. 

THESE special Americans are people who are limited in what they can do and understand 

and achieve. 

THEY are slower to learn than most. They have greater difficulty in coping with swift 

change and life's growing complexity. 

BUT they are not helpless or hopeless. 

LIFE for them has taken on new promise since Congress, responding to popular and 

professional call, passed major legislation in their behalf not quite four years ago. Over 

$400 million a year is now appropriated for federal programs benefiting the retarded. 

More than twice that amount is spent each year by the states, localities, and private 

citizen organizations. The result has been an extraordinary growth in the services 

which the mentally retarded and their families may call upon. 

1 

THE ACHIEVEMENT, HOWEVER, Is ONLY A BEGINNING. 

AMONG the major needs still facing us are: 

 Half of the nation's 25,000 school districts offer no classes for pupils having special learning problems and 

needs. Many of the existing special education classes do not offer retarded students opportunity to learn and 

achieve to their full capacity. 

 Three-quarters of the nation's 201,000 institutionalized mentally retarded live 

in buildings 50 years old or more—many of them "hand-me-down" mental or tuberculosis hospitals or abandoned 

military installations. 

 The 81,000 full-time staff in public facilities for the mentally retarded must be almost doubled to reach 

minimum adequacy. 

 The mentally retarded in disadvantaged neighborhoods often receive significantly less service from public 

and private agencies than do the retarded living in other neighborhoods. 

 An estimated 2 million retarded persons capable of learning to support themselves need job training and 

placement services. Even at minimum wage, these individuals have a potential annual earning capacity of $6 

billion.

 The cause of three in every four cases of mental retardation remains unknown. 
OUR PROSPEROUS, OUTREACHING AMERICA 

MUST CONCERN ITSELF with this group of its 

least able citizens for practical as well as idealistic reasons. 

FIRST, we have learned that problems ignored or neglected do not go away. On the contrary, they grow, both in 

urgency and cost, until at last we are forced to contend with them, 

often at enormous expense for measures that can only hold the line. 

WE are confident that the causes of mental retardation will be found. Some already have been discovered. When 

we know more about the causes, we will be able to make significant advances in prevention of retardation. 

AND we have learned that the clear-eyed compassion which helps the weak become stronger, the less able to 

achieve to their full ability, the dependent to become self-reliant is a necessity for people who have 

important work to do in the world. We Americans are such a people. 

FOR the retarded and for ourselves we must continue and improve on the splendid beginnings that we as 

citizens of a great nation have made in meeting the national problem of mental retardation. 

Training Programs in the Field of Mental Retardation 

Department of Labor 

Year Mentally Retarded 

Persons Trained 

Persons Trained to Work with 

Mentally Retarded 

1963 160 12 

1964 90 90 

1965 2,727 664 

1966 1,740 281 

1967 2,777 250 

4 
IT IS NEARLY FIVE YEARS SINCE a panel of 

the nation's leading authorities on mental retardation, appointed by President 

John F. Kennedy, made the first thorough survey of what was being done for the retarded and what 

needed to be done. It is now time to assess what has been accomplished since then and to set new 

goals. 

The 1961-62 President's Panel on Mental Retardation made 95 action recommendations that sought 

progress in four critical areas. 

The nation, said the panel, could make significant progress against the problem of mental retardation if: 

 We as a nation confronted mental retardation as a major national social, educational, 

and health problem calling for legal and 

moral commitment at all levels; 

 The problem was exposed to the widest possible citizen awareness, interest, involvement and action, 

ceasing to be the concern solely of a closed, professional group; 

 We took the revolutionary step of treating mental retardation as a problem in national human resources, 

moving to narrow the research-and-service gap so that prevention programs could be launched and a 

significant percentage of the mentally retarded made self-sufficient contributing citizens; 

SPECIAL EDUCATION CLASSES FOR THE MENTALLY RETARDED 

EDUCABLE 

Year Number of Classes Number of Pupils 

1953 --- 408,903 

1958 --- 201,443 

1963 22,500 363,000 

1964 26,415 406,000 

1965 31,277 459,442 

1966 36,851 519,422 

1967 43,525 587,722 

TRAINABLE 

Year Number of Classes Number of Pupils 

1953 --- 4,659 

1958 --- 16,779 

1963 2,500 30,000 

1964 3,490 40,035 

1965 4,678 52,341 

1966 6,329 68,322 

1967 8,522 89,252 

 The national concern about the retarded was backed in action by allocation of sufficient money and 

manpower to make real progress possible in all areas—research, prevention, planning, and services. 

These recommendations were challenges put to the nation by a group of dedicated specialists who knew that 

the most effective and enduring works in the United States are those undertaken by an informed, aroused 

citizenry. The recommendations resulted in legislation that attacked the problem through research, professional 

training, programs of prevention, and state and community planning. 

SINCE ITS APPOINTMENT A YEAR AGO, YOUR COMMITTEE ON MENTAL 

RETARDATION has carried on an intensive effort to learn and evaluate the nation's progress in combating 

retardation. The Committee has inquired into the status, trends, and needs of programs for the mentally retarded 

nationally, in the states, and locally. This inquiry has proceeded along several lines: 

 A survey that sought to learn the adequacy of present programs from a nationwide sample of 3,000 

persons. 

 Field interviews with community mental retardation programmers, citizen and volunteer leaders, state 

planners and coordinators, training and manpower development experts, and residential facility 

superintendents and staffs. These interviews have been carried out in 15 states across the nation. 

 Forum meetings held in the field by the Committee's subcommittee on the state of the nation in mental 

retardation programs. These meetings have brought Committee members together with state, community, and 

private agency workers as well as interested citizens for an on-the-scene look at how the needs of the retarded are 

being met. 

• Fact-finding meetings with key staff from the wide range of federal agencies operating programs 

or interested in the field of mental retardation. (Among these—and demonstrating the scope of federal 

involvement—have been 

the Department of Labor, Department of Defense, Department of Housing and Urban Development, 

Office of Economic Opportunity, Civil Service Commission, Veterans Administration, and the National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration, as well as several Department of Health, Education, and 

Welfare bureaus.) All federal agencies having programs are reporting data 

on their activity and experience. 

FROM these and other, special studies, we can report that the last five years have seen an historic 

emergence of mental retardation and the mentally retarded from isolation and public indifference. 

MANY factors have contributed to this development, among them major federal involvement in 

programs for or benefiting the retarded, a reawakening in the states to their own social service needs, 

and a national information campaign by public and private agencies together to build public awareness 

and understanding of mental retardation and the mentally retarded. 

Major successes include: 

• All 50 states (plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands) now have a 

written plan for providing comprehensive services for the retarded. 


• Privately sponsored day care and recreational programs for the retarded are now available in 

many parts of the nation. Local and state associations for retarded children alone sponsor over 300 

day camps and 150 residential camps as well as more than 1,000 other recreational and social group 

programs. 

WHILE THESE SUCCESSES HAVE BEEN BUILDING, HOWEVER, LONG-TERM 

NATIONAL TRENDS HAVE BEEN 

RAISING NEW CHALLENGES to which those concerned 

for the mentally retarded must address themselves. 

Soon, for example, ninety percent of Americans will be city-dwellers, their lives shaped daily by 

mass technologies. . . . Effective and meaningful living requires that the individual obtain more 

and more formal education. . . . 

The spiraling growth of the American population—some 70,000 babies are born each week— strains 

the already undermanned teaching and other social service professions to meet even the needs of 

the normal. 

STATE AND LOCAL MENTAL RETARDATION AUTHORITIES 

ARE CONCERNED about what the galloping complexity and sophistication of American life will 

mean to the retarded, who have the lowest capability to adapt to swift change. They ask: 

• What effect will automation have in the lives of the retarded? Will it take over those jobs 

which the retarded can now handle? Will it create new jobs for them? 

STATES WITH PHENYLKETONURIA 

SCREENING AND CHILD ABUSE 

REPORTING LAWS 

PKU Child Abuse 

Alabama Alabama 

Alaska Alaska 

California Arizona 

Colorado Arkansas 

Connecticut California 

Florida Colorado 

Georgia Connecticut 

Hawaii Delaware 
Idaho Florida 

Illinois Georgia 

Indians Idaho 

Iowa Illinois 

Kansas Indiana 

Kentucky Iowa 

Louisiana Kansas 

Maine Kentucky 

Maryland Louisiana 

Massachusetts Maine 

Michigan Maryland 

Minnesota Massachusetts 

Missouri Michigan 

Montana Minnesota 

Nevada Mississippi 

New Hampshire Missouri 

New Jersey Montana 

New Mexico Nebraska 

New York Nevada 

Ohio New Hampshire 

Oklahoma New Jersey 

Oregon New Mexico 

Pennsylvania New York 

Rhode Island North Carolina 

South Carolina North Dakota 

Texas Ohio 

Utah Oklahoma 

Virginia Oregon 

West Virginia Pennsylvania 

Wisconsin Rhode Island 

South Carolina 

South Dakota 

Tennessee 

Texas 
Utah 

Vermont 

Virginia 

Washington 

West Virginia 

Wisconsin 

Wyoming 

Virgin Islands 

 How can communities be helped to cope with the some 75 percent of the nation's 

mental retardation that is produced in low income, disadvantaged areas? 

 Can the schools develop and utilize special education techniques that will fit the 

retarded student for social adequacy and economic productivity in tomorrow's 

society? 

 Will enough of the coming years' college and high school graduates see and seize 

the challenge of building careers in work with the mentally retarded? 

 Will the developing comprehensive health program and planning packages 

include adequate planning and services for the needs of the retarded? 

 Can the tide of research and program innovation be kept running strong until it yields 

the major breakthroughs needed to bring significant reduction in the incidence of mental 

retardation? 

The Committee is investigating and will continue to investigate these and other 

questions. It is essential, however, to select a few major problems for immediate attention 

in order to ensure 

an effective focus and significant result. 


1. Mental retardation services must be available to more of the nation's people. 

Particularly, ways must be found to bring these to low income, disadvantaged neighborhoods, both urban 

and rural. 

Community public and private agencies working with the mentally retarded must move swiftly to assure 

that the retarded in lower income neighborhoods receive the same services as the retarded in other 

neighborhoods. Provision for the needs of the retarded must be included in the comprehensive "one-stop" 

community health care programs now being developed. In need of special attention are medical and social 

measures—such as parent and child health, family planning, and counseling programs—that give promise of 

reducing mental retardation in "high risk" areas now having an above average rate of incidence. 

The nation's schools must plan both to improve their special classes for the mentally retarded and—

because it can now be clearly shown that many children become retarded during their school years—to raise their 

over-all instructional quality, especially in those schools whose students live in a retardation-fostering environment. 

Pre-school programs—such as Project Head Start—need increased emphasis in this connection. 

Private citizen organizations have especially meaningful challenges in these areas. That they have had success 

in stimulating and building public awareness and services in the field of mental retardation should not blind them 

to how much remains to be done. 

The voluntary agencies are able to express the will and apply the strength of citizens banded together for 

cooperative action. They should, therefore, take the lead in developing new directions for social services, 

effective liaison among themselves for comprehensive action, and careful, objective analyses of need and resource 

to assist state and national legislators in writing pertinent, effective legislation for the mentally retarded. 

19 
COMPARISON OF ENROLLMENTS IN SPECIAL CLASSES 

ON BASIS OF TYPES OF LEGISLATION 

2. More effective and extensive manpower recruitment and training 

programs for work with the mentally retarded are needed. 

Acute shortages of professional specialists—especially teachers, therapists, 

physicians, social workers and nurses—continue to hamstring programs for the 

retarded in all parts of the nation. 

Careers in work with the retarded must be brought to the attention of the nation's 

young people. And the incentives—financial, career developmental, intellectual and 

prestigious—that would stimulate youth interest and commitment in such 

careers need intensive build-up. 

In addition, we must open up new career fields in mental retardation programs. 

Trained, professionally recognized supportive workers can take on much of the 

work now done by physicians, nurses, social workers, psychologists, therapists and 

administrators. Here, in fact, is the most significant challenge and opportunity in the 

mental retardation manpower area. In such work, non-college and junior college 

graduates can meet great need and build satisfying careers. 

Broader use of supportive workers in mental retardation programs could also 

tap major reservoirs of precious human resource that are presently little utilized. For 

example, students (through such activities as the Student Work Experience and 

Training program) and elderly persons (through such activities as the Foster 

Grandparent Program) have created valued places for themselves in work with the 

retarded. Programs of this kind need major expansion. 

If, however, these opportunities are to be seized fully and the field's 

specialists freed to use their skills to maximum effect, many walls and barriers 

erected in the name of "professionalism" must be torn down. 

 20 
Finally, the priceless extras of care and help that community volunteers, both 

adult and youth, can bring to the mentally retarded in community as well as 

institutional programs need to be more widely appreciated and called into service. 

3. Fuller use of existing resources is a necessity. 

The final aim of all programs and services for the mentally retarded is that the 

retarded individual receive the help he needs at the time and place he needs it. All 

mental retardation program planners and service-giving staffs, at whatever level, should 

build and coordinate their efforts to contribute to the efficient realization of that 

aim. Appropriate incentives—decision-making authority, opportunity to make and 

test innovations, and recognition of creative program contributions—should be given 

to encourage those planning and conducting services to participate in their steady 

improvement. 

The critical point for coordination of planning and service is the level at which 

services are given—the community. 

Agency and private organization workers with the retarded must learn how to 

make skillful, imaginative and full use of the many resources already available to 

them in their daily community contacts and from state, regional and national sources. 

They must also learn to work and think together so that each service they plan 

and make available for the mentally retarded and their families will join all possible 

and needed resources in accomplishing its purpose. 

Information and citizen involvement are indispensable to success in this area. Governors' advisory 

groups on mental retardation services and state coordinating bodies should actively promote the formation of voluntary associations on behalf of the retarded in every community (or group of 

communities) in their states. Each citizen should have access to a directory of state services for the 

retarded. Particular attention must be given to measures by which the new parents of a retarded child 

may receive immediate assurance that they are not alone and that there is hope and help for their 

child and themselves. 

Finally, families having mentally retarded children should be informed of and encouraged to 

make use of the casework, foster care, protection and medical services available through public and 

private welfare agencies. 

Work at the service-giving local level, however, must be backed by effective coordination, 

cooperation, and leadership at state, regional and national levels. Great improvement could be effected 

in these areas. 

4. More public-private partnerships in program development, services and research are 

needed. 

Such partnerships join citizen initiative and imagination with state and federal resources. They 

give all levels a stake in the solving of social service problems. 
Among possible partnerships in the field of mental retardation: foundation-assisted demonstration 

projects in disadvantaged areas . . . cooperative labor-industry studies and experimental projects in employment and vocational rehabilitation of the mentally retarded . . . application of industry-developed 

systems management techniques to the meeting of local and state mental retardation needs . . . cooperative 

programs for improvement of public library resources in mental retardation materials . . . public grant 

assistance to voluntary organizations wishing to stimulate innovative services to the mentally retarded 

. . . a cooperative project of government, universities, and technical publishers to translate and make 

foreign-language mental retardation research and program reports available. 

Local and state governments, especially, should promote and enter such partnerships as part of an 

enlightened public policy to foster long-range growth that is shaped, led and endorsed by the citizens 

concerned. 

24 
5. A national mental retardation information and 

resource center should be developed. 

The center would serve as a central storage and dissemination 

point for information on mental retardation and mental retardation 

programs. It would gather, systematize and furnish information on 

research, studies, programs and services throughout the nation and 

in other countries, employing the most up-to-date facilities and techniques for information gathering, storage, evaluation, retrieval, exchange and dissemination. 

Consultative services, too, would be made available through the 

center to mental retardation program planners and leaders at all 

levels, and to state and community planners of comprehensive health 

and social services. Also available through this center should be a 

basic directory that will enable any citizen to locate a contact in his 

state for mental retardation program and information assistance. 

To develop broad national participation, the center might be a 

public-private partnership, with the federal government, state governments, and private organizations in the mental retardation field assisting in its financing and costs. 

6. Basic research, training in application of research, 

and rapid translation of research results into service 

program uses need continuing encouragement. 

Far too little, even now, is known about mental retardation, its 

causes, and ways to combat and prevent it. 

Biomedical research has been able to identify 25 of every 

100 cases of mental retardation as associated with faulty genetic 

constitution or resulting from virus infections, accidents and diseases 

before birth or in early infancy. The body processes bringing about 

mental retardation in the other 75 percent of cases are still unknown, 

although nutritional, intellectual and cultural-environmental factors 

are often clearly at work. 

 25 
Knowledge resulting from scientific research now makes it possible to prevent a tantalizing one to two 

percent of mental retardation through tests and treatment beginning at or shortly after birth (phenylketonuria 

and some other conditions in which metabolic disorder can produce retardation) and through immunization 

(measles). 

It is imperative that many more scientists engage in studies in areas (such as biochemistry, physiology, 

learning) related to or bearing on the field of mental retardation, and that these scientists multiply their own 

efforts through greatly expanded training activities for scientific researchers and supporting research personnel. 

Better and wider use of modern technology (such as automation) will make possible the development of 

new or more widely applicable techniques for retardation study, treatment, and prevention. For example, 

automated procedures would enable the genetic study of larger numbers of people and the detection of subtle 

differences between normal individuals and those whose genetic make-up is such that they are "carriers" of 

genes associated with retardation. Progress in this area will in turn make genetic counseling more accurate. 

A special effort should be made in the study of prenatal life from its cytogenetic and physiological 

aspects, utilizing all appropriate clinical experience as well as the resource afforded through the National 

Institutes of Health's primate research centers. Increased knowledge in this area will make prenatal diagnosis 

and, ultimately, prenatal therapy possible. 

Research on factors leading to a higher incidence of mental retardation in low income areas must be 

expanded and special methods developed for reaching such "high risk" groups through intensive family 

counseling and planning services. 

26 
We also believe it a matter of national urgency that all known successful research findings and 

program experience applicable in the detection, treatment, and prevention of mental retardation be put 

to work as widely as possible. Much that is already known is not applied, or is too little utilized. 

At the same time, we must end the isolation of the United States from the world field of mental 

retardation study and action. Our experience and know-how are desperately needed in many parts 

of the world. Equally great is our need to learn from nations that have built programs for the 

retarded that are in advance of our own. 

Ways of facilitating information and experience exchange among U.S. and foreign researchers 

and programmers in mental retardation need to be developed. Early exploration should be made, for 

example, of an international mental retardation information and experience exchange via the scientific, 

medical, and educational communications satellite channels now on the drawing board. Finally, 

the federal government, as part of the national commitment to combat mental retardation, should 

help support basic retardation research and program experimentation in other countries and aid U.S. 

planners and programmers to study foreign mental retardation programs and problems. 

7. Immediate, major attention should be given to early identification and treatment of 

the mentally retarded. 

The majority of children identified as mentally retarded are not discovered until they reach 

school age. 

By that time, as many as three or four years—and precisely the years during which the child 

learns most rapidly—have been lost during which special programs could have been preparing the 

child to live usefully with his handicap. 

Screening of infants and pre-school-aged children for symptoms of mental retardation (as well as 

other handicaps) should be part of every community's public health services. School districts 

should offer special pre-school classes whose purpose is to begin, with the identified retarded child 

under five years old, the careful course of education and training that will produce a socially 

competent and economically productive adult. 

Instruction in the causes, treatment and social implications of mental retardation should be a 

part of the curriculum in all schools preparing students for careers in the health or social service 

fields. 

27 
The important role that the clergy often has in family counseling should also be considered in this connection. 

In addition, all schools readying students in the health, social service, community organization and related 

fields must move to make their instruction and training in the techniques of individual, family and group 

counseling the best possible. They should, indeed, assign as much importance to this area as to their professional 

subject matter areas. 

All medical and social service agencies and facilities should give increased, major attention to measures 

that will reduce the impact of mental retardation on the family and the community. Such measures include 

well-baby care programs . . . early psychological screening and biological evaluation of children . . . close and 

continuing observation of the identified retarded child's growth, development and learning . . . 

comprehensive, coordinated medical and social services for the retarded . . . counseling and planning aids for the 

parents of a retarded child. Need for such measures as these were stirringly described in your Spring 1967 

Message to Congress on Children and Youth. 

8. Social and institutional planning for the coming decades 

must take into account the special needs of the mentally retarded. 

It is estimated that some 2,100 children who are or will become mentally retarded will be born every week 

in 1968. 

Until more ways are found to prevent mental retardation, we must expect that up to three percent of our 

annual baby population will be or will become mentally retarded. 

Facilities and programs for the retarded, therefore, should be considered in the compilation of every state 

and community development, education and social service plan, as well as in such guidelines as may be 

developed for federally aided urban development, housing, and comprehensive health, rehabilitation, welfare and 

education programs. Specialists in mental retardation should be involved in the basic social service planning 

process. 

Simultaneously, renewed attention must be given to public facilities and programs for the five percent of 

the mentally retarded who require full- or part-time residential care. 

These have not kept pace with progress in community activities on behalf of the retarded. Some of the 

best residential programs. 

28 
represent triumphs of resourceful staffs over cheerless facilities, penny-pinching budgets and general indifference. 

Many are plainly a disgrace to the nation and to the states that operate them. 

The states must meet their responsibility to plan, construct and maintain modern residential facilities for 

those mentally retarded needing them. They should retain architects to design facilities that will be cheerful to 

live in as well as promote maximum effective use of staff and other resources, provide sufficient funds to staff 

and operate the facilities at adequate levels, and integrate the facilities' operation into the over-all state plan for 

health and welfare services. 

9. The legal status of the mentally retarded individual must be clarified and his rights guaranteed. 

Studies indicate that no state adequately reflects in its laws what we know of the mentally retarded today. 

Outmoded classifications 50 or more years old are in common legal use. 

The laws applicable to the retarded in most states deny them even the elementary rights of citizenship. 

This situation can and must be remedied through forthright action to recognize in state guardianship laws, 

mandatory education laws, institutionalization procedures and ( for retarded offenders) penal regulations, 

inheritance laws, court and police procedures, and civil rights statutes that the mentally retarded are variously 

limited individuals whose basic human rights are inalienable. 

We particularly commend this question to the action of the legal profession through its national and state 

associations. 

10. Lastly, we urge that everyone interested in helping the mentally retarded and combating 

retardation give thought to imaginative ideas and approaches that will make new advances possible. 

New ideas and approaches are the catalysts that change problems into possibilities. They are needed in 

every phase of the nation's29 
effort against mental retardation. Among the questions on which bold, original thinking and ideas are needed are 

the following: 

 What is the cost to the nation of mental retardation? That cost is known to be staggering in terms of service 

expenditure and undeveloped human resource. Its more precise determination and elaboration in terms of longterm national societal trends is a major planning need. 

 With jobs being increasingly designed for people, what kinds of job engineering can and needs to be done 

for the retarded? What kind of teaching-training techniques need to be designed for use with the retarded to ready 

them for jobs designed for their particular skills? 

 In the increasingly complex city, how shall we at once utilize and protect those mentally retarded who can 

support themselves in a job but need a form of guardianship in their off-duty hours? 

 How shall we plan to serve the mentally retarded among the 10 percent of the U.S. population who will 

continue to live in small towns and rural areas? 

 What will shorter work weeks and more leisure time for Americans generally mean for the retarded? Will 

there be adequate volunteer help available? What of recreation for the retarded themselves—what are its 

undiscovered potentials for bringing the retarded a greater share in the fullness of daily life? How shall we 

inspire young America to enter this critically important field, both as volunteers and as career workers? 

 What job, personnel and career changes and innovations will be necessary to match available skills and resources 

to the meeting of ever-growing need in the mental retardation field? 

 What are the moral and ethical implications of technological findings in the genetics and management of mental 

retardation? Should a discourse on these subjects be instituted among scientists, philosophers, theologians, social 

theorists, parents? 

The widest possible attention to the problem of mental retardation is a national necessity. The problem affects all 

parts of American society. The best thinking and action of labor, industry, the professions, and government must 

be brought to bear on this problem. It is too significant a problem, too tough a challenge to be left to a 

comparatively few specialists and other interested persons. 

30 
MR. PRESIDENT, THIS REPORT PRESENTS ACTION AREAS in which concerted national, state and 

local effort by public agencies and private, voluntary organizations can produce significant progress in 

combating mental retardation and lessening its effects. This Committee has in progress a group of special 

reports which will present specific documentation and recommendations on many of the areas described 

in general terms in this report. Effective action, however, need not await the compilation of details, but 

can be taken at every level now on the basis of information already available. 

We enlist your aid, Mr. President, in endorsing the release of this report to the public and in urging 

action at all levels for a continuing, effective national attack on the problem of mental retardation. 
The endpapers of this report present an artistic portrait of the mentally retarded and an 

approximate tallying of the degrees of mental retardation of each 

100 retarded individuals. 

The mildly retarded—nearly 90 percent of all the retarded—are shown in dark brown or 

white outline. All of these can learn to do productive work, and most can learn school 

subjects. 

The moderately retarded, shown in light brown outline, can learn to care for themselves and 

do simple, routine tasks. 

The severely and profoundly retarded—who are the very small number requiring constant 

care—are shown in dark blue outline at the bottom of the chart. 

PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS 

IV, 9, 14, 16, 18, 22, 29—David Warren for the President's Committee on Mental 

Retardation; 2— Human Resources Center; 13— FRIENDS Magazine. 

U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1967 0 - 269-237 
The President’s Committee on Mental Retardation Members 

John W. Gardner, 

Chairman 

Robert A. Aldrich, M.D., 

Vice Chairman 

Joseph A. Beirne 

Barry Bingham 

Horace Busby 

Robert E. Cooke, M.D. 

John T. Dailey, Ph.D. 

Patrick J. Doyle, M.D. 

Mrs. Hubert H. Humphrey 

George Jones 

Mathilde Kim, Ph.D. 

Robert B. Kugel, M.D. 

Robert B. Kugel, M.D. 

Leonrad W. Mayo 

Robert H. O’Brien 

Lloyd E. Readers, Sr. 

Theodore S. Repplier 

Bernard Rosenberg 

Mrs. R. Sargent Shriver 

George Tarjan, M.D. 

Thomas A. Tucker 

Henry Viscardi, Jr. 

Raymond W. Vowell 

R. Sargent Shriver 

Ex officio 

W. Willard Wirtz 

Staff 

David B. Ray Jr., 

Executive Director 

Allen R. Menefee, 

Deputy Executive Director 

Maurice Flagg 

Director, Information Services 

Office Staff 

Mrs. Helen Caldwell 

Miss Martha Compton 

Mrs. Ruth Gray 

Mrs. Cynthia Wiggins 

Consultants 

Gerard J. Bensberg, Ph.D. 

Gunnar Dybward, J.D. 
Crozet J. Duplantier 

Mortimer Garrison, Jr., Ph.D. 

Edward L. Johnstone 

Richard Koch, M.D. 

Curtis Krishef 

Edward L. LaCrosse, Ph.D. 

Francis X. Lynch 

Darrel J. Mase, Ph.D. 

Norman Pursley, M.D. 

Donald J. Stedman, Ph.D. 

Richard C. Thompson, Ph.D. 

Stafford L. Warren, M.D. 

In Addition, the Committee expresses its gratitude to the many individuals in 

government at all levels, in the voluntary organizations, and in private life who have 

given invaluable assistance.