MR 70 

The President's Committee on Mental Retardation THE DECISIVE DECADE
We are grateful to the following for the use 

of their photographs: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, NIH Office of Child Development, DHEW Office of Economic Opportunity 

Reproductive Genetics Unit The George Washington University School of Medicine 

Washington, D.C. 

Brown BrothePaul Conklin Morton R. EnJames Foote Jerry Hecht Ralph MattheRoy Perry Michael D. SuDavid Warren Jim Wells 
The President's Committee on Mental Retardation 

was established by Executive Order of the President in 1966. The Committee is composed of 21 citizen members and three ex-officio members appointed by the President to advise him on what is being done for the mentally retarded; to recommend Federal action where needed; to promote coordination and cooperation among public and private agencies; to stimulate individual and group action; and to promote public understanding of the mentally retarded. 
The President 

The White House Washington, D.C. 

My dear Mr. President: It is my privilege to transmit to you the fourth annual report of the President's Committee on Mental Retardatio

This report concisely reviews the areas in which the Committee has focused its attention in 1970. It also preview

decade for preventive measures and amelioration of the national problem of mental retardation. The report hiresidential care and the breakthrough in research; it also outlines the need for further advancement in programs 

delivery of services, and continued behavioral and biomedical research for the mentally retarded. Among the programs the Committee will focus its attention upon during the coming months will be a reexamination of intelligence testing and classification procedures; a study of states' systems for delivery oretarded; and a report on the constitutional rights and guarantees of the mentally retarded. The Committee is deeply grateful to you for your interest and inspiration and asks your continued guidance. 

Faithfully yours, Elliot L. Richardson Chairman 
Mr. President: 

We see the decade of the '70s as one in which decisive progress can be made in overcoming mental retardation and it

 Exciting work being done in a score of fields and at every level of national life is intensifying toward real achiev

this so-long neglected area.  Research in the biomedical and behavioral sciences has discovered many causes of thmuffling condition. Ways have been found to prevent some of these causes, and we are on the threshold of discovery 

preventive measures. It now seems probable that at least one major cause of retardation could be dramatically dimin

assuring all Americans a basically adequate diet. And the effects of the mental retardation that cannot yet be prevente

reduced in many cases through education and training programs begun in early childhood.  These discoverie

translated into practical programs and service delivery systems. Much of the base for making up-to-date, effective available to the mentally retarded has been established. Each state has a comprehensive plan for the developmimprovement of services for the retarded. A framework for school services for the retarded is established. Th

Government supports essential research, training and innovative assistance programs. Fundamental reform in the multidollar-a-year field of residential services for the severely retarded is beginning. Agencies and citizens generally are m

journey from old attitudes of pity and revulsion to a view of the retarded individual as a human being with dignity and Increasingly, programs focus on helping the retarded person participate as fully as he can in the community's life and  This report, Mr. President, our second to you, will comment on several areas of most significant progress and mo

need in mental retardation. We ask your help in commending this report to key individuals in public and private agenorganizations whose action can bring about the advances now. 

R

For the approximately 275,000 people who 

live in the nation's public and private residential facilities for the mentally retarded, and the thousands more who are on waiting lists to enter those facilities, there's big news: fundamental change and improvement are on the way. 

When these changes are made a part of 

the life of each retarded person who 

requires care away from home, we will have triumphed over the institutionalized dehumanization and neglect to which we have so long relegated many of our mentally retarded under the guise of care and concern. This will be a major accomplishment in terms of lives made productive and self-reliant. Several developments during the past year encourage the President's Committee on Mental Retardation to optimism and hope. A key development has been the formation of a Federally funded Council for the Accreditation of Mental Retardation Facilities, working within the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals to develop generally accepted standards of performance for mental retardation facilities, programs and staffs. Guidelines, chiefly those developed by the American Association on Mental Deficiency already exist. The standards 

now being formulated will evolve from those guidelines and cover previously undefined areas such as day care standards. All of the major national citizen organizations working in the area of care, rehabilitation and education of the mentally retarded are cooperating in the accreditation standards development project. Simultaneously, there has been major progress in defining desirable conditions and goals for services to the retarded. The International League of Societies for the Mentally Handicapped has focused major interest on residential services for the retarded, with a Special Symposium devoted to the definition of ideal programs. The National Association for Retarded Children, in a conference on residential services, urged that the reasons for a retarded individual's admission to a residential facility be specified and the individual's program be geared to attain those ends. The President's Committee on Mental Retardation, culminating four years' study and promotion of action in the residential service field, has issued an action policy proposal; sponsored a national conference of facility and agency leaders to discuss the ways of spurring meaningful change in residential programs for the retarded; 

and stimulmedia accnationwide. CoordinatorMentally Rpart in drafostered mthose who reform, anand prograpart—who, personnel prchanges, hodo so may dialogue improvemenwell as crealegislative acome endurThe PCMRfollowing b

0 The prim

services is individual intellectual fullest extentional maturpossible, skessential fliving.... * NACSPMthe basis of 

It is initialthe Social aDHEW.
o The mentally retarded shall have the same constitutional rights and 

guarantees as every other American citizen. o The residential facility should be used for programming, not 

punishment. 

o Good residential programs provide both long-term and short-term services.... o It is the obligation of the residential facility to develop each individual's economic potential.... o It is essential that a residential facility coordinate its programs with other regional and community mental retardation services for the 

development of a full range of comprehensive services. 

o The model residential environment should provide a warm, stimulating social setting, devoid of dehumanizing conditions. o Administrative policies should recognize the importance of the 

interrelationships of parents, volunteers, staff and residents. 

o Staff must reflect attitudes and behaviors consistent with the concept that they serve as family surrogates while the retarded are in their care. 

Implementation of the action propos

al, its introductory statement 

asserts, "will be a saving act—in human resources, in program 

effectiveness, and in financial cost per individual served through human service programs." Both the National Association for Retarded Children and the American Association on Mental Deficiency are promoting implementation of PCMR's Action Policy Propo

their regional membership meetings. AAforums to publicize and discuss wayThe proposal's educational implicationCouncil for Exceptional Children's 1formed National Association of Residential Facilities for the Mentally tion field to take every possible actservices. And PCMR is asking each tardation program planning in light of 

Disabilities Act and take appropriate the legislation to the retarded. Thus has come about for the first timremedy and improve the conditions of reretarded. This is a major achievement friends of the retarded throughout thhumble ones, in public and private lthe past quarter-century to bring puaction on behalf of the retarded. Althouit counts—in the lives and prospects of be gallingly slow to those who have wlong for it, there is now at least cerway—indeed, is well launched in a few And that is good news indeed. 

Malnutrition and undernutrition are major causes of impaired human mental development. Animal studies prove that malnutrition or undernutrition of mother or offspring at certain critical pre-birth and post-birth periods of rapid 

growth: 

o impair both physical and mental development; o can cause permanent and irreversible retardation, regardless of the quality of later nutrition; o are most harmful when they consist of a lack of specific nutrients such 

as certain essential vitamins, amino acids or proteins. Moreover, neurologic and mental abnormalities caused by poor nutrition that occur at those early, rapid stages of development have 

been found to be permanent, even when physical signs of poor nutrition have been corrected. Chronic food deprivation spanning more than one generation has been found to produce increasingly serious effects, particularly in reduction of learning ability. And poorly nourished animals usually show behavioral and emotional aberrations that interact with the equally-hard-to-treat neurological and mental deficiencies in impairing learning ability. 

It is difficult to apply the results of ex

beings. Similar experimentation on humobservation that researchers have thus faindividuals and groups subjected to conditions argues that the conclusions radequate nutrition on animals apply eevidence: o A large number of studies conducted race and socioeconomic background 

children have severely impaired or refunctions as well as emotional and beha

o An examination of the brains of infa(a starvation-related condition markefound their structure and characterisabnormal in the same ways as the brafrom starvation. o A group of South African childmalnourished in infancy was studied Although full physical recovery sesignificant IQ differences (over 20 poicontrol group of average children persmalnourished children never reach
children had continuing visual and motor abnormalities. 

Similar studies in Mexico and Guatemala have found persisting abnormalities and memory deficiencies among children who were malnourished before 6 months of age. 0 A study in which genetic differences were allowed for found 

that children with physical signs of earlier malnutrition rated consistently and significantly low in tests for neurological functioning. 

0 A preliminary report of the National Nutrition Survey, in 

which the U.S. Public Health Service is collecting nutrition data on 70,000 persons, found evidence of malnutrition in an 

unexpectedly large percentage of low income group members, with up to a third of the children studied showing malnutrition-associated characteristics similar to those of undernourished populations in some of the world's poorest nations. The evidence that poor nutrition in mother and child causes mental retardation as well as other major handicaps is so overwhelming that it is time to cease quibbling over incomplete-as-yet research on the permanency of poor nutrition's effect on human beings. It is time . . . and past time . . . to get on with the essential work of preventing a cause of mental retardation that is both so extensive and so possible to eradicate in the United States. 
Poor nutrition in the United States is almost 

completely a phenomenon of urban and rural low income areas. Nor is there any mystery about why the condition exists in those areas. It exists there simply because many of the people who live in those areas do not and cannot get enough food and enough of the right kinds of food. The reason is not that poor people cannot recognize or will not buy nutritionally valuable food; a 1965 Department of Agriculture study 

found, in fact, that low income households get more calories and nutrients per food dollar spent than do higher income households. The reason, President Nixon stated in issuing the call to the 1969 White House Conference on Nutrition: "Millions of Americans are simply too poor to feed their families properly." 

Reduced 

Learning 

Ability 

Impaired 

Neurological

Functions 

Memory 

Deficiency

Irritability 

and 

Impaired 

Judgmen

Lower IQ

An estimate

20 million

Americans 

Suffer from 

Maln

utritio

Upwards of 25 million Americans live on incomes of less than $3,300 a year for a family of four, and half of these Americans—including some 5 million children—live in households having an annual income of $2,200 or less. To maintain an adequate diet, such families would have to spend over half of their income for food. Almost no one realistically can budget so large a part of income for food, and the actual result of the 
clamoring competition of necessities in the lives of the "hard 

core" poor is an endemic semi-starvation. The National Council on Hunger and Malnutrition estimates that perhaps 20 million Americans suffer from malnutrition. This is not the place, nor this Committee the appropriate group, to wrestle with the myriad economic, social and public 

policy questions posed by the existence of so large a group of Americans living in poverty. We hope that the various programs and approaches proposed by this administration will open the way to opportunity and a just share of America's prosperity for those who have been living on too little. Food has historically been looked on and studied as a 

production and consumption item in the American economy; until very recently there were few surveys that attempted to link food with people's nutritional status. The small band of nutritionists and dietitians around the country have had to strive against general ignorance and indifference about food as a foundation of health. That ignorance and indifference, moreover, seems to be growing rather than diminishing. Reduced consumption of milk, less breast feeding for infants, more preprocessed meals, fast 

increasing consumption of food outfood habit trends through which of the wrong foods, nutritionally 

kind of food. And, finally, the U.Sfuller utilization of innovative progthe attention of the American peopThese are all developments that we 

about for the sake of the health achildren, and our children's childreIn 1971, the President's Committee publish a report presenting in dethrough research and observation malnutrition, general health, mental In issuing the report, which is ppreparation, the Committee recommendations of steps that government at all levels can take most needless of all causes of madequate nutrition in ou

Research 

Biomedical and behavioral research in mental retardation and allied areas pays off. Little noticed amid the multitude of multi-million-dollar searches for causes of cancer, heart disease and other major cripplers, the comparatively modest efforts of mental retardation, human development, learning handicap and neurological researchers have been making extraordinary progress in early diagnosis, prevention and relief of retardation. Fact. Some 27 heritable metabolic disorders that can lead to mental retardation (among other effects) can now be identified in the fetus from study of fluid or cells taken from the pregnant mother's amniotic sac. This procedure, called amniocentesis, has been 

developed during the past decade and is now available at most university and other large medical centers. Among the conditions that can be diagnosed through this method are galactosemia, Tay-Sachs disease, Hurler's syndrome, Gaucher's disease and glycogen storage disease, all of which produce severe mental retardation. Also identifiable by the same procedure are organic genetic defects in the fetus caused 

by absences or irregularities in the chromosomes that program an individual's development. One of these chromosomal abnormalities, Down's Syndrome (Mongolism), affects 

one baby in every 600 born. This condition alone accounts for 10 percent of the people living in residential facilities for the mentally retarded at an average lifetime cost to taxpayers of over $100,000 per person. A related procedure now makes it possible 

to identify individuals who face a greaterthan-average risk of producing a child having genetic defects that could lead to mental retardation. This procedure, just becoming available through medical and research centers, studies an adult's tissues or blood for cellular evidences of genetic irregularities which may, especially when in combination with similar irregularities in a spouse, produce a defective fetus. These products of biomedical research, together with evolution of new attitudes on abortion, are making it possible for the first 

time in history to predict an individual's chances of conceiving a normal child, to know whether a fetus is normal or defective and to give affected persons opportunity to make their decisions in these matters on the basis of facts. Fact. Viral diseases that can lead to birth defects and mental retardation have been dealt heavy blows by research teams working on new vaccines. The most critically important of these vaccines just now is the 
rubella (German measles) vaccine that has 

become available during the past 18 months. If enough children can be immunized with this vaccine, there is hope that there can never be a recurrence of the cyclic rubella epidemics, the most recent of which in 1964 produced thousands of babies afflicted by mental retardation and physical birth defects. Other recently developed vaccines are now greatly reducing the incidence of mumps, measles and other viral diseases whose complications have often led to neurological damage and mental retardation. Fact. Now intensive research findings have 

made it possible to prevent nervous system damage in the Rh positive child of an Rh negative mother. This condition can result in mental retardation. Besides the wellknown exchange blood transfusion technique (which, dramatically, can now be carried out before birth), there has been developed an immunization that prevents the build-up in the mother's system of sensitizing antibodies that react on the child. Fact. Sophisticated new techniques of monitoring the fetus before and during birth 

today make possible the prevention of many physically and mentally crippling "accidents" of pregnancy and birth. These techniques also make possible the instituting of effective measures to help the high-risk baby before, during, and following birth. These major advances are but beginnings, however, in an endeavor that must find 

many more answers before decisive achievement in the prevention or relief of mental retardation can be claimed. For example, much as we know now about those conditions that result in mental 

retardation at or soon after birth, there remain great voids in our understanding. The cause of approximately 75 percent of mental retardation is still unknown. Studies of the effects of viruses on human development—both in the short and long terms—are in their infancy, despite the significant achievement of vaccines for rubella and other conditions. The rubella immunity that can presently be given is incomplete and may not be permanent. The influence on human growth and development of viruses that lie dormant in the body for years may be immense. Especially needed are cooperative, interdisciplinary studies by both biomedical and behavioral scientists into improved early diagnosis and programming for mild and moderate developmental problems—the great majority and the least known. This Committee urges, as it has since its establishment and as did the President's Panel on Mental Retardation almost a decade ago, that basic research in all phases of the biomedical and behavioral sciences must continue with as broad support as possible. Some of the most significant discoveries in the diagnosis and prevention of mental retardation made during the past decade have come from studies not originally concerned 

with retardatiFact. Behavioing evidence the crucial imthe developm

FREQUENC

AMONG 37

MA

No defect Deafness Heart disease Cataract (2) Cataract (1) Glaucoma Retinopathy oPsychomotor retardation 

Mild Moderate Severe 

Purpura Deaths Department University ScN.Y. (Dr. Lo
It is becoming increasingly evident that environment plays 

a major role in shaping both the developmental course and rate of human ability. Earlier concepts saw growth and development occurring according to a fixed genetic pattern and pace in a closed system that did not change. The latest findings point to growth and development as an interacting process between the individual's genetic endowment and his environment in an open system. This new conception will 

have a profound effect upon child rearing and educational practices in the development of a competent and productive society. We urge, therefore: Continued support for biomedical and behavioral research activities and facilities; Continued development of programs for training medical students in research careers; Continued development of needed legislation such as the Developmental Disabilities Act; Continued dissemination of research results to the agencies and individuals needing them; Continued widespread involvement of citizens in such activities as measles immunization campaigns, birth defects information efforts and volunteer assistance in the centers, classrooms and agencies where the results of research are being put to work for the people. 

Incidence of Rubella from 1928 to 1967, in ten Island, Connecticut, New York City, Ohio, IllinWashington, and Massachusetts. National Communicable Disease Center, Atlan

CLINICAL MANIFESTATIONS OF 

CORRELATED WITH TIME OF M

(--------------Month of Pregnan

Defect First Second Third Fourt

Neonatal purpura 

14 43 7 2 

Heart disease 34 62 17 2 Cataract or glaucoma 30 31 6 0 Deafness 50 76 55 21 Neurologic deficit 34 63 20 11 Total children* 60 106 82 43 Department of Pediatrics, New York University ScLouis Z. Cooper).*Includes multiple defects
Education 

In late summer 1969, PCMR sponsored, with the Bureau of 

Education for the Handicapped of the U.S. Office of Education, a conference on the learning problems of inner city children. The conference was held at a ti

me of rising national concern 

about the increasing education problems of the deprived child. Standard techniques for testing and placement seemed to exclude or defeat the child rather than provide the framework for productive, fulfilled living. For example, when a standard IQ test was given in Spanish to Mexican-American children assigned to classes for the educable mentally retarded, the children's IQ score jumped an average of 14 points—an increase which took some of the children out of the state's mental retardation classification. Already a topic of widespread discussion was a study of classroom performance in relation to teacher expectation which found similar groups of children bearing out widely differing performance expectations on the part of their teachers. Court suits on disproportionate assignment of minority group children to special education classes already have been filed. PCMR's interest in this area has grown out of a broad-scale effort to find out how many mentally retarded persons of school age there are, how many are in school, whether they receive appropriate school and community services and what might be the best services and curricula for them. The Committee discovered that making such determinations is no easy thing to do. State laws differ, with one state, for 

example, calling IQ 78 the level at and below which a child is considered retarded, while another may place the top of the 

classification at IQ 70. Some states 

or obsolete definitions in their retarded. In few states is the mandseen as applying to all children wservices and programs. The principal facts are: (1) the mdeclared mentally retarded at any labeled by the schools, (2) most othe schools are from minority and much of the under performance bas mild mental retardation is preattacked early, since the cause may bThe August 1969 conference dquestions. It identified a new inhabscene—the "six-hour retarded chiladjustment is adequate but whose and often grows consistently worseschool administrators, teachers, citizens—made seven recommendatschools and better school services: RECOMMENDATION 1 

Provide 

tion, education, and evaluation as public education. RECOMMENDATION 2 Condusuccessful inner-city families weffectively with their environment. RECOMMENDATION 3 Restrucadministrators, counselors. Retrai

SOCIOCULTURAL STATUS AND IQ 

CORRELATION FOR MEXICAN-AMERICAN 

AND NEGRO CHILDREN IN A 

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY 

Sociocultural status measured on a rising scale of 0 to 5 Adapted from a chapter prepared by lane R. Mercer, Ph.D., for Peter Orleans and William Russell, Jr. eds., "Race, Change, and Urban Society;" Urban Affairs Annual Review Vol. V, Sage Publications, Inc.
RECOMMENDATION 4 Reexamin

telligence testing and classification. RECOMMENDATION 5 Comm

funding for research and developrovement for disadvantaged childrRECOMMENDATION 6 Thorougtutes accountability, allocate sufficresponsibility entailed and hold tproviding quality education for all RECOMMENDATION 7 Involcitizen groups, students, and genertotal educational effort. As a major follow-up to the inner PCMR plans a national conferencevaluation of instruction in special mentally retarded. This conferenCouncil for Exceptional Children afor the Handicapped of the U.S. Oheld in 1971. Its principal topic wintelligence testing and classificainner city education confereneducators, university represcurriculum and guidance specialistsrepresentatives will probe the issuescreening procedures used routincurrent practices and the curriculum improved screening procedures wouIn another phase of its broad-scale for the mentally retarded, PCMR lasto evaluate curriculum materials for the educable mentally retarded. Turging all education materials plannebetter, more relevant curriculum 

During the past decade the mentally retarded have entered the work world in significant numbers for the first time. It has been an eye-opening experience for all concerned. Employers whose original motivation in hiring retarded workers came perhaps more from charity than business sense have discovered that there are many jobs that the retarded can do well—often better than other workers—and that intelligence is not the only qualification for successful employment. Friends and families of the retarded are discovering to their surprise in many cases that the trained retarded can earn and live their own way, that the true dignity of work lies in doing well and productively those things that one can do. And the retarded themselves are finding themselves liberated into "real" life. They go to work, earn pay, have their own places to live and their own possessions. They have become people! Along the way of discovering the potential of most retarded people and 

developing that potential, we have learned that education and work are the most important factors in programs developed to help the retarded. Vocational training, education and the skills and disciplines of work that bring a retarded individual up to producing at his potential can give him new life. The President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped and 

PCMR have together come to the conclusion that the education and training of a mentally retarded person should be vocationally oriented from their beginning. They should be pointed toward the kinds of jobs that will actually exist in the area in coming years. And school programs of education and training for the retarded should be flexible enough to develop good work skills and attitudes in the broad range of ability levels among the retarded who can benefit from school programs. These programs should also continue up to the point at which the retarded individual moves into the job he will hold (no gap between 

training anassistance cuntil the neadjusting conditions, his own. In a nation yardsticks othe number 

training handicappeproductive ajobs is a din the healtAt the same of dignity handicapped thereby a plife, are no of their mnation munecessary be the mentallthem to "gecontinuing matter.
State 

Services 

Progress and improvement in the lives and prospects of the nation's millions of mentally retarded individuals depend, ultimately, on how well the services they need are delivered. And how well the services are delivered depends primarily on the planning, efficiency and effectiveness of the state and community agencies that administer and furnish public programs and services for the handicapped. Each of the 50 states and territories has a plan whose purpose is to assure that the retarded receive both the individual and comprehensive services they need through the action of agencies acting singly and cooperatively. However, reports from parents of retarded children as well as specialists working in the field continue to tell of fragmentation in services, insurmountable barriers in bringing individuals the kind or range of services they need, and vast public confusion about what kinds of services, if any, are available. Early in 1970, the President's Committee on Mental Retardation began a study of thedelivery of services to the mentally retarded. Although the advantages of early intervention in developmental problems is 

now generally studied refuse facility to anof six, regarretardation. Rthose stateinstitutions—(for welfare rdepending on In most statoffers free, pBut in many 

ignored in rchildren whos"normal." Spthe mentally and many scto provide suin many schstates in whruled that thfree, public edStill neglecteschool periostates' prograthe period be

18 
The Committee is continuing its special project on economics. The study and analysis of economic factors and comp

services will provide us understanding on which we may base future directions and plan serv
school vocational training programs and the 

actual beginning of a job. Yet, uncounted numbers of the retarded are lost forever during this period to the work force and to achievement of self-reliance for themselves. Far too few vocational training programs for the retarded operate to prepare their students for jobs that will actually be in existence and available when the student has completed training, and there are almost no facilities available for the retraining of retarded workers when employment needs change. The mentally retarded adult is a forgotten human being in many states. If he is not a welfare recipient or an institution resident, he is likely to be eking out a subsistencelevel existence through work on the very margins of the economy. Few states or communities have an adequate range of workshop, activity or recreational programs for the adult retarded living in the community, and fewer still have effective, on-going counseling resources. Five states currently being studied by PCMR have made significant progress toward the goal of coordinating the activities of state 

agencies to pmentally retarchange. But are often limand funding—adequacies in neglect of stalation, whilgroups are Moreover, agfor services vagency to agefacilities for ting to uniform to concentratpopulations—with or those easily makes The Presidentardation urge

study of its pror are intendretarded, and assure that tmet through uand gener
GROWTH OF STATE SERVICES IN NORTH CAROLINA 1962-1969 
Additional Action Areas 

During the past year, the President's Committee on Mental Retardation has continued its long-term studies and initiatives in the areas of legal rights and 

guardianship of the retarded, manpower planning and utilization, and 

international information exchange activities. Legal Rights and Guardianship In June, the Committee sponsored a meeting of experts to examine the status of guardianship provisions for the retarded and suggest ways in which those provisions may be made more realistic and effective. Fifteen representatives from state and Federal agencies and from such organizations as the National Association for Retarded Children and the United Cerebral Palsy Associations of America attended. Most states' provisions for guardianship of the retarded are relics of a time when the mentally retarded individual was considered an incompetent who had to be kept away from normal social and work contacts. They largely consider or assume the retarded person to be without rights, deny him due process or the equal protection of the laws, and often encumber his family's estate for years as the price of the 

state's assuming his care. The damage doare capable of self-support and selfbecome caught up in the judicial probe in effect held responsible for a retgeneration is incalculable. The President's Committee is wguardianship provisions that will enco

to exercise all of the citizen rights thgive him the benefit of equal protectiocitizens, and promote the developmenfor the retarded (and other handicapcounselors and as surrogates as necessarManpower Also in June, the President's Committee pjoint United States-Canada conferencuse in the mental retardation field. training courses, programs and 

to the mentally retarded are to grow to 

full effectiveness. Especially urged was 

removal of obstacles that prevent the best development, assignment and career growth of aides and other supportive personnel in mental retardation programs. The report also recommends: o Intensive re-evaluation of special education programs in schools, particularly those for the educable mentally retarded, with the over-all objectives of putting the full resources of the school to work for the retarded child, enlarging the teaching perspectives of special education personnel and giving regular classroom teachers and school administrators better understanding of special education aims and methods. o The setting of performance standards for all levels of basic and supportive personnel, with the maintenance of those standards made the responsibility of a professional organization. o The development of accreditation procedures for all facilities serving the needs of the retarded. o The setting up of in-service training programs for all categories of staff who work with the retarded. o A broadening of national and international work study exchanges to include supportive staff "so that everyone, from the student to the professional, both basic and supportive 

personnel, has the opportunity of 

enriching hivarious dutiInternationaIn Septembfirst internaretardation approaches Delegates frThe confereupgrading oestablishmenof the Caribexist. Among othconferees uregional sefunction wiall relevant needs of thCaribbean, disciplinary Although thhas a far grof active predecessorsunities to mepast is to bfuture for thtask before knowledge so The Decisive 

 Committee Members 

Elliot L. Richardson Robert A. Aldrich Marianna Beach N. Lorraine Beebe William H. Borders Clair W. Bu

U.S. Government Pr
The President’s Committee on Mental Retardat

MEMBERS (1970-71) Elliot L. Richardson Chairman Robert A. Aldrich, M.D. Vice Chairman Marianna Beach N. Lorraine Beebe William H. Borders, Jr., M.D. Clair W. Burgener David Echols Donald Lee Fox Victor R. Fuchs, Ph.D. Lawrence A. Kane, Jr. Susann R. Ora Lloyd E. Radar, Sr. Louise R. Ravenel William B. Robertson Jeannette Rockefeller Luis D Rovira Kenneth J. Ryan, M.D. George Tarjan, M.D. Thomas A. Tucker David Udall Raymond W. Vowell The Secretary of Labor, Ex Officio The Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, Ex Officio

PROFESSIONAL STAFF Fred J. Krause Acting Executive Director Francis X. Lynch Deputy Executive Director George S. Morgan, Richard C. Thompson, Mary Kay Walsh, John P. Wilbern Program Specialists Mary Z. Gray Program Information Services Ronald W. Conley, Ph.D. Economist OFFICE STAFF Diane Bailey Nancy Borders Helen Caldwell Evelyn Cochran Gwendolyn Coleman Ruth Gray Beverly Keith Melzetta Neal Priscilla Riches

CONSULTACharles E. ACharles D. BGerald J. BeLouis Z. CooEleanor ElkiThomas EtheDennis E. HaEdward L. JFrancis P. KMarianna PaNorman B. PPaul RittmanDonald J. SteMargaret B. The Committindividuals in voluntary orgwho have furnencourageme
DEPARTMENT OF 

HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20201 

OFFICIAL BUSINESS