ABSTRACT
A major impetus for this book was a meeting I attended, sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, in which many well-known psychologists doing mental retardation research, along with their students, were brought together to discuss the progress being made toward understanding the learning and thinking processes of mentally retarded individuals. The conference members soon split into two groups, one consisting of those who believed that mild mental retardation is largely the result of poor environment, the other group made up of those who believed that mild mental retardation results primarily from genetic deficiencies (including the natural consequences of the normal distribution of whatever genes are responsible for intelligence) and from known and unknown physiological pathologies. What surprised me most, however, was the pervasive lack of knowledge—shown particularly but not only by the students—about the history of attempts to raise intelligence. They appeared to believe sincerely, with no element of skepticism, that intelligence (however you define it) can now be raised appreciably by training and education so that retarded persons will behave intellectually in a manner appropriate for their chronological age, which is another way of saying that mental retardation can be cured by pedagogical methods.
