Mental Retardation and its Social Dimensions
- Author:
Margaret Adams
Studies of the Child Welfare League of America
Columbia University Press? New York & London 1971, $10 This is a book written in ‘Americanese’ for Americans and, as such, it is a difficult book to read?sentences are long with a plethora of polysyllabic words and an excess of italics. It is said to be a distillate of experiences, some of which were in a working-class London borough, but the bulk of the book relates to America.
The quasi-medical section is poor and might have been better omitted. For example, little or no heed is paid to the place of genetic counselling in family dynamics. The historical section is predominantly American and has very little relevance to this country.
The book appears as a justification for the profession of social workers rather than a positive approach and no new ground is broken. Quite correctly mental retardation is presented as a problem in social adaptation. The need io consider the family as a unit rather than dealing with the handicapped member alone is stressed. But the book is doing little more than underlining a philosophy which is already widely accepted.
It appears that the battle between the protagonists of ‘generic’ social workers and specialist social workers is not confined to this country and this book suggests that a generic social worker with specialist training is required for the care of the mentally handicapped. This is not a book that I would consider essential reading for those working in the field of mental retardation.
Gordon Dutton
Disclaimer
The historical material in this project falls into one of three categories for clearances and permissions:
Material currently under copyright, made available with a Creative Commons license chosen by the publisher.
Material that is in the public domain
Material identified by the Welcome Trust as an Orphan Work, made available with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
While we are in the process of adding metadata to the articles, please check the article at its original source for specific copyrights.