Mental Retardation - No Excuse for Not Being Able to Read

Kids can begin learning to read at age 5. A child who begins reading at this age is not considered extra smart; rather, this is a result of parents who are involved in giving their kids a head start. Another way of putting this, is that a brain with the mental capacity of a 5-year-old can learn to read at a rudimentary level.

Therefore, why is it that so many people with mental retardation (MR) cannot read at all? There are varying levels of MR: profound, severe, moderate and mild. The mild range pertains to the mental equivalent of an 8-12 year old child. The moderate range means mental age of a 4-7 years old. Severe is mental age of 3 years to around 1 year or so. Profound is infantile state. Severely retarded people are considered "trainable," because a person with the mental capacity of a preschooler cannot be educated, as far as number calculations, reading, printing, etc.

But moderately and mildly retarded individuals are considered "educable," because this mental age range can be taught how to understand numerical concepts, written communication, and other academic areas.

It's a shame that so many moderately-and especially mildly-MR adults are totally illiterate. I once had a part time job with MR adults in a job preparation program in Chicago. The social service agency was a joke. MR adults who could read whole novels were in the same group as "clients" who couldn't even add single-digit numbers.

I had access to their school and intelligence-testing records, and I soon became aware of a disturbing pattern. Many of the adults were "high functioning," in that they could carry out multi-task instructions and carry on a fruitful conversation, and for the most part, acted pretty normal. However, about half of them could not read, write or do simple math.

This illiterate group had as much intelligence as the literate group. In fact, the illiterates were indistinguishable from the literates, in terms of behavior, conversational capacity, and the ability to comprehend workshop tasks, job interview training, etc.