The More You Know, The More Visible They Are...

Organizations like The American Association for Mental Retardation and the Association for Retarded Citizens exist to educate the American public on the many aspects of mental retardation (MR), including prevalence, resources for families and educators, and research statistics. Unfortunately, these resources are usually only utilized by people who have recently become touched by mental retardation in a personal way. Whether it's because they have a child diagnosed with MR, or perhaps because of interaction with an individual with MR through a social or professional circumstance.   The socially invisible population usually remains invisible to anyone else who has no need to learn more about MR.

Through research for this blog, I've come across some interesting statistics about MR which really puts the diagnosis and those living with it in perspective. Most people don't understand just how lucky they are that they weren't born with MR, or that their children weren't born with, or developed MR. According to the American Association on Mental Retardation, there are generally four different risk factors that cause MR: 

1. Biomedical factors
    -things such as birth defects, or genetic disorders, and even malnutrition

2. Social factors
    -things such as child stimulation and adult responsiveness

3. Behavioral factors
   -harmful behaviors like drug and alcohol abuse (i.e. fetal alcohol syndrome)

4. Educational factors
   -things like the availability of educational materials and support for pregnant women, to teach them the                proper way to care for themselves while pregnant

It's rare that we journey out into the public and see a person with MR, which is why we always notice those individuals right away. There is just something "different" about them, even if their disability isn't blaringly obvious. But, just how many people are there in this country, living with MR?

In 1982 (that's 31 years ago for all you mathematically-challenged out there), the Association for Retarded Citizens estimated that roughly two and a half to three percent of the general population live with MR. This equals approximately nine million individuals (give or take a million, based on population growth).  Given the increased research and awareness of autism over the last ten years alone, it's possible that the number could be well over ten million.   More people live with MR than those who live with cerebral palsy, and birth defects such as spina bifida. MR shows no discrimination when it comes to race, ethnicity, educational, or socio-economic backgrounds. In fact, almost one out of every ten families in the United States is directly affected by MR.

So you see, MR is common. Our neighbors, our coworkers, and our friends all might be related to, or at least know someone who lives with MR.  The fact that we might not interact with an individual with MR on a regular basis doesn't mean there isn't a whole subset of our population who lives with it. Gaining awareness of the causes of MR is also an important step in understanding it's prevalence. It certainly makes me think more about how miraculous the process of birth is and how we walk a fine line between "normal" development and MR.  We often don't give a second thought to most of our actions, or choices. However, when you start to think about the damaging effects of drug and alcohol abuse, or the fact the impoverished in our world suffer from malnutrition and non-existent prenatal care and education, it's easy to realize that every single one of us has the chance of being directly affected by MR.

Contributing Sources:  http://www.heionline.org/docs/training/introduction_to_mental_retardation.pdf

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