ABSTRACT
Concern for the quality of life and the way in which people spend hours of enforced leisure has led to interest in the needs of mentally handicapped people of all ages. Many disabled and multiply handicapped adults – among them those who have known no childhood – are still, and are likely to continue to be, living in institutions for the remainder of their lives. Much has been written about the depersonalization of individuals in institutions and the limiting of any form of personal creativity. It is sufficient to note that, in the training of many occupational therapists nowadays, more importance is placed on early skills in developing free expression, such as in finger painting, paper tearing, even in scribbling. Games involving sense training of discrimination – involving listening, touching, smelling, finding things, and all the feelings, sequences, directions and body images found in a simple game of hide-and-seek – are 'new' situations for some residents.
