ABSTRACT

The first seven broad categories might reasonably be seen to ‘belong’ to psychiatry and have links with medicine because, as will be shown, there is a range of evidence to show that these conditions have varying degrees of biological features, as well as psychosocial factors. The learning disability categories are now recognised to be reactive to underlying organic conditions. However, the more socially orientated description of ‘learning disability’ was found to be more useful in seeking to meet the needs of such people, rather than what became, irrespective of intent, the overly passive hospitalisation leading to inadvertent social exclusion.