ABSTRACT
Most behavioral workers in mental retardation are ambivalent about the developmental approach to mental retardation. These researchers examine specific aspects of functioning in adults with retardation and espouse defect orientations. They therefore feel that a developmental approach offers them little. Yet even so; most would acknowledge that, along with defect approaches, the developmental approach has been one of the two major approaches within the field of mental retardation (Baumeister, 1987).
