Conference moira::parenting_v3

    Again, I defer to my wife, the occupational therapist, who used to work
    with developmentally disabled children and adults:
    Yes, retarded is still used in diagnosing a particular level of
    disability. However, the more accepted "label" (if there is such a
    thing as an aceepted label!) is developmentally delyaed or disabled. A
    diagnosis would be made on the basis of IQ. A "normal" IQ is 100. An IQ
    of between 80-100 is considered "borderline", 60-80 is considered
    "mild", 40-60 is "moderate", 20-40 is "severe" and 0-20 is "profound".
    Considering that up until about 25 years ago it was still considered
    acceptable to use the words "imbecile" and "idiot" to describe
    Profoundly and severely retarded, this system doesn't sound *quite* as
    bad. Well, so what does all this mean practically? Actually, not a heck
    of a lot! There are so-called borderline or normal IQ folks who can't
    seem to walk and chew gum at the same time, who never function
    productively in society, who never learn to read, etc. So, what does
    the future hold for a mildly retarded 7 yr. old boy? He will, with some
    special ed help and possible Occupational therapy, go on to quite
    likely be a perfectly capable member of society. He will almost
    certainly be able to read and write well enough to hold a job
    independently. He will be able to learn to bank, use a checkbook, etc.
    He will be able to care for his personal needs independently. He will
    be able to cook, clean, manage an apt., without help. Now, he will
    probably never be a top engineer, or a brain surgeon, but will be
    perfectly capable of learining a skilled craft (carpentry, auto
    mechanics, repair work, etc.  He will not necessarly be consigned to
    just menial labor (emptying trash baskets, sweeping floors, washing
    dishes....please! I'm not belittling these jobs...they are obviously
    necessary. I'm just characterizing them as ones that require little
    skill to complete well). In short, he can lead an active, productive,
    fulfilling life! Many who are diagnosed as borderline or mildly
    retarded go on to marry, raise families, etc.  I would urge his parents
    to have him retested in several years, particularly after he can read.
    IQ tests, at a pre-reading level, can be very subjective, depending on
    the level of cooperation the subject exhibits that day. Actually, all
    IQ tests are somewhat misleading. It is my humble opinion that they
    have little to do with what a person, who is properly motivated,
    encouraged, nurtured and loved, can ultimately do.
    I hope this has all helped you understand your little friend. It sounds
    to me as if he's very fortunate to have *you* for a friend, and I would
    encourage you not to think of him any differently now, but to continue
    to give him the extra hugs, love and encouragement it takes to help him
    become all he wants to and can be!
     --dave (and the resident OT, his wife, Wendy)--

    My 16 year old son is 'mildly retarded'. He is an 9 year old in
    a 16 year old body. We have attempted to 'reclaim' the word
    retarded so that when kids use it around him he can turn it
    back on him. 'Retarded' simply means slower. Steve learns more
    slowly than other kids, but he still learns. So if kids say things
    like 'retard' to him, I am hoping he will get to the point where
    he can just reply, that the word just means 'slow' not that
    he can't learn.
    
    There is a lovely song on this theme that I think I still have
    in my directory. If I do I'll enter it here.
    
    Bonnie

    Many of the "mildly retarded" kids and adults I've known seem to
    be much more sensitive than the average to what other people are
    feeling and insightful about their problems.  It's as though
    intellectual capacity in some sense interferes with the ability to
    really communicate on the emotional level.
    
    Certainly intellectual ability is not the only skill one needs to
    be a complete happy human being, nor is the possession or lack of
    it a moral issue.  It's just one of many attributes of being
    human.  It sounds like your wonderful young friend is very strong
    in some of the very important aspects of living.
    
    --bonnie

    A boy in our neighborhood during the summer lake season seems to
    fit the 'mildly retarded' description, and is called names by our
    kids and the many others who overrun our house.  In spite of constant
    admonishions by my wife and myself, the other kids (and us) get
    irritated by his inability to stop asking questions in a high-
    pitched voice, and his inability to 'remember' anything more than
    5 seconds.
    
    But one day, while a half-dozen boys clustered around me, insisting
    they 'help' with some carpentry project, I saw a different boy.
    I said they could hand me tools, then stay out of my way until I
    needed another tool.  When I said 'hammer' all the 'bright' kids,
    including mine, wandered about in a daze with their thumbs up their
    noses.  The 'retarded' boy found, fetched and slappped a hammer into
    my hand with the precision of a scrub nurse assisting a surgeon.
    And so it went for an hour.  Nails, slap, saw, slap, level, slap.
    Soon the 'bright' kids got bored being beaten out by the 'retarded'
    kid and wandered off to other more fascinating distractions.
    Meanwhile, my little helper stood faithfully by, reveling in the
    attention and working with a concentration and determination the
    others seemed incapable of mustering.
    
    I've not thought of him the same way since...mwr
    

    Re .4, How beautiful and inspirational.
    
    and the others, I agree that the "better" labels like "challenged" are a
    whole lot easier for society to accept.  Personally I can relate,
    here's my son who is 3.5+ and has been rated at least a year ahead by
    intellectual test, and STILL refused to be fully potty trained.  My
    sitter put it in prospective for me once, If he's not meeting your
    expectations, then maybe it time for ME to lower MY expectations of
    him!  (and I did!)
    
    Lyn
    

    Re: .5
    
    Toilet training has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with intelligence!  I
    hope I'm not being too emphatic or unkind, but it keeps coming up
    again and again -- people thinking that because their baby isn't
    walking yet, or isn't toilet trained yet, the kid isn't going to
    get into Harvard Law School 20 years later.  But the age at which
    a child starts walking and toilet training and even talking has
    no, repeat no, bearing on intelligence, intellectual capacity, or
    later achievement. 
    
    --bonnie

    A different hot button for a different person: I am tired of 
    naive re-naming of problems!
    
    The "label" is not the bad thing--it's the actual situation which
    is the bad thing, and you can't change it by changing its name.
    Thinking you can do so is believing in magic.  If you're crippled
    or stupid, then you have a problem.  Calling you "challenged" or
    "special" or whatever is not going to change the problem.
    
    Each time a label becomes tied to a painful or awkward condition,
    it acquires negative connotations, and will be used pejoratively
    as an insult.  This is inevitable.  When well-meaning people replace
    a term in the vain hope of removing the pain of insult, they don't
    accomplish much (other than adding negative connotations and blurring
    the definition of a previously useful word--"idiot" was once a technical
    term).
    
    I know I'm swimming against the cultural tide on this one, but
    so what--sometimes the majority is wrong.
    
    		-John Bishop

John, I'm glad you entered this.  I have been feeling the same
way.  

re: .7

>If you're crippled or stupid, then you have a problem. 

<Flame on mild>
I think you have a valid point, but I think you picked a couple of lousy 
examples.  I think you have gone to an opposite extreme.  What does 
"stupid" mean anyway?  Would you call a retarded adult, much less a child 
"stupid"?  If you would, then I'm afraid that YOU have a problem.  Unlike 
other terms measuring intelligence, like "idiot", "stupid" has never, in my 
memory, had any precise meaning, has never been used clinically, and has never 
been used except as a term of derision -- unless you mean the dictionary 
definition "stunned" in which case you used it incorrectly.
<Flame off>

Sometimes changes in terminology have more to do with advances in medical 
knowledge than they do with attempts to euphemize.  Thus, a condition once 
called "Mongolism" when I was a child is now called "Downs' Syndrome".  
"Senility" is now "Alzheimer's Disease".

Unless you speak Latin, language is alive, it is vibrant.  The meanings of 
words change.  Thou canst change that, even if thou wouldst like.

I object to euphemizing, if the purpose is to ignore dealing with a 
condition.  But I don't object to people trying to escape stereotypes.  And 
to be honest with you, I think that's what most of the "euphemizing" is.
And I DO object to the use of words that are imprecise and unneccesarily 
harsh -- like "stupid".

Clay

    Not having an OED around, I'll assume that "stupid" has no
    non-pejorative meaning and request that you replace it with
    "dull-witted".  My goal was to use the most strightforward
    terms I could.
    
    I have a degree in Linguistics--I'm well aware that languages
    change.  Not all change is an improvement.  Linguistic changes,
    however "natural", rarely improve the use of language as a tool
    for communication. (I assume there's a "not" in your "thou" 
    sentence, by the way.  It's also likely that the final "like"
    is anachronistic and should be dropped.  But this is a truely 
    unimportant nit.)
    
    Unilateral re-definition of words degrades communication in a
    dangerous way--consider the re-definition of "special" a decade
    or so ago to mean something like "significantly sub-average in
    some mental or physical measure".  How did you learn this new
    definition?  By context, if you were like me.  But for some time,
    some people only knew the old meaning, while others knew both the
    new and the old.  This can lead to confusion when a member of the
    first group says "so-and-so is special".
    
    You don't escape a stereotype by telling people that from now on,
    you want to be called "X" rather than "Y".  You escape a stereotype
    by changing peoples minds (your own and those of the people you meet).
    
    			-John Bishop

    .10>   -< All change is not good >-
    
    ;'D   I wouldn't go that far!  (More like, "Not all change is good.")
    
    BTW, I too am fed up with the "crippled->handicapped->physically
    challenged->differently abled" sequence.  I assume that most of us
    Parenting noters would like attitudes to change, but I don't agree that
    arbitrarily changing adjectives will accomplish that.  To some degree,
    the "musical labels" game has prompted me to avoid speaking about
    <label> people, unless absolutely necessary (explaining wheelchairs to
    my daughter) for fear that I'll not be using the label-of-the-month.
    
    *linguistics rathole alert*
    
    ...And if I hear one more person get "ENTHUSED" ... especially about a
    *single* "CRITERIA"... I'll scream!
    
    Leslie 

    
    
    
    
    
                Set/Term=Raging Inferno
    
    ********************************************************************
    The term "retarded" although it means slow, has been used in a
    derogatory sense for years. I agree with Clay. Words do have meanings
    not in the dictionary. Some words evoke negative connotations. Doesn't
    the term "developmentally delayed" convey a sense of hope? After all
    folks, we don't have to live with being called a "retard". A little
    seven year old boy does. He can't even read Websters Dictionary or
    Roget's. 
    
    Regarding the term disabled: The person is not disabled in most cases.
    This is a misnomer. I would hate to be described with an adjective be-
    ginning with "dis". Because a person has a disability should not de-
    tract from the ability.
    
    Regarding the term "handicapped": This comes from "cap in hand" from
    the old days when the disableds and the retards had to beg for a living
    in order to survive.
     
    
    
            *************@FLAMEOFF**************
                                             
    Have a nice day,
    
    Kate the basenoter (from another account)

    Ooooh, my, my! This is a a HOT topic! I know my wife used to think it
    absurd when they had to stop reffering to those living at the
    developmental center as "patients" and begin refferring to them as
    "clients". What difference did it make? Yeah, I know, a "patient" is
    someone who is "sick". But that is not always the case. These residents
    saw doctors daily, were frequently on medication, had round the clock
    nursing care.....now how is it inappropriate to call them "patients"?
    Did it make them less capable in life? Of course not. Most people
    thought "clients" was ridiculous, making them sound more like someone
    visiting their lawyer, or their accountant. Even those residents who
    were caplable of understanding the change in terminology thought it a
    dumb change, and said so.
    I know of someone my age (early thirties) who has very withered legs
    and leg muscles. She is unable to walk, can not get around with
    crutches or braces...only with a wheelchair. She fumes at the term
    "differently abled". She says, (loose quote) "I am not "differently
    abled"! I am crippled! I do not do *different* things from others. I do
    some of the same things, and others I cannot do at all. My *abilities*
    are the same as you....it is my *inabilities* that set me apart! They
    are not different! I am crippled, and if that makes you uncomfortable,
    then I suggest that it is not the label you are uncomfortable with, but
    me, and the way I look". I found a lot of validity in what she said.
    
    Maybe there is a place for the newest euphemisms as they keep cropping
    up. I don't know. I do know that for those to whom the
    euphemisms/labels/what-have-you are applied, it makes little
    difference, and they, in fact (personal experience here) often resent
    the constant societal label changing game. They are what they are, and
    will always have to battle with those with attitude problems toward
    them. It is more a matter of (IMHO) education, that should start from
    early childhood, that those who are unlike us are no less human, and
    should *always* be accorded the respect, dignity and opportunites, as
    far as is humanly possible, that everyone else is.
    We, personally, never shush our children when they overloudly ask "Why,
    does that man walk funny?", Or  "Why does he look so different?" We
    explain calmly that everyone is different....some people walk, some
    need wheelchairs 'cause their legs don't work like ours. Some people
    have been blessed with very quick thinking, and some people take a bit
    longer to think things through or talk, or whatever. Deal with it
    matter-of-factly, and they will too. Thsi is where it changes...the
    attitudes our children get instilled into them. We happen to have
    caucasian skin...our son loves "reading Rainbow", and was very
    dissapointed to find out that he wouldn't get as dark as Levar, no
    matter how tan he got! He has not concept that there is among many
    people, prejudice to skin tone, national origin, etc., and we'd just as
    soon leave it that way as long as possible. He will, inevitably find
    out. Right now, he thinks its neat to see folks in wheelchairs, and
    says it must be great to ride everywhere! (We have explained that those
    who must use wheelchairs might look on it a bit differently!)
    I've rambled and, perhaps, digressed. This is a *hot* button with
    me....teach 'em right, and the label won't matter, no matter what it
    is!
    --dave--

    in re .12
    
    Your derivation of the word 'handicap' is one that I've seen in
    other places, but it is not correct.
    
    It originally comes from the practice of putting forfeits in a cap
    in a lottery game. From this the term came to describe any hindrance
    or compensation given different contestants (as in golf.)
    
    Bonnie

    (Climb on soapbox)
    This is worse then a rathole, seems more like a toilet bowl.  I do not
    like some of the new words describing particular situations, but in
    this case I think the reasons are valid.  You're a retard!!!!!  Ever
    heard that on the playgroud?  Most people probably have.  There's alot
    of stigmatism tied to this terminology.  If it helps the family and
    child deal with the challenges which they will face in the future to
    use the terminology mentally disabled, or a slow learner, who the flip
    are you, me or anyone else to inflict our unexperienced hangups on
    them.  (climb down off soapbox)
    
    
    I know people who are slow learners who are leading perfectly normal
    lives.  The key is to treat them as much as possible the way you would
    anyone else.  Let them try things and they will have successes and
    failures.  Keep on encouraging them and they will be productive members
    of society.
    
    Peace,
    
    Mike 

>    in re .12
>    
>    Your derivation of the word 'handicap' is one that I've seen in
>    other places, but it is not correct.
>    
>    It originally comes from the practice of putting forfeits in a cap
>    in a lottery game. From this the term came to describe any hindrance
>    or compensation given different contestants (as in golf.)
>    
>    Bonnie
    
    
    Bonnie,
    
    I heard this analogy from a number of people with disabilities and once
    on TV. I think the term used in golf and bowling may have come derived
    from the earlier definition. But it really doesn't matter. If
    physically or mentally challenged people BELIEVE the word "handicapped"
    comes from "cap-in-hand" this is reason enough, in my opinion, not to
    use it. 
    
    Thanks,
    
    Kate (the basenoter from another account)z

Re: .16

Two unabridged dictionaries that I looked at agree with Bonnie.  There
is no indication that there is a second derivation for physical handicaps.

I don't believe it is proper to change the language because some people
don't understand the etemology of a word.  To me, it seems the proper
way to handle that situation would be to educate the people who don't understand.

There seem to be two conflicting human tendencies here.  The first is
the natural desire by the
handicapped/crippled/disadvantaged/differently-abled people to have a
collective noun that they are comfortable with.  The second is that the
people who don't have these problems want a collective noun that THEY
are comfortable with.  I don't think the latter care what it is --
they'd just like one they can use without offending someone.  These
being dynamic times, and everyone having an opinion, I don't think it's
going to get settled soon. And it's certainly not going to get settled
in this notesfile.

                                        >>>==>PStJTT