A research project has been done with 140 retarded children admitted to an observation clinic for children with developmental disturbances. All the children were defined as mentally retarded in the applications for admission to the clinic.
By evaluation 19 % of the children functioned at a normal or borderline level. 78 % of the children had behavioral problems and/or emotional disturbances. 20 were defined as simply mentally retarded with no evident behavioral or emotional problems. Due to the high percentage of mentally retarded children with emotional disturbances, the authors sought to specify a few factors that may contribute to this problem of retardation. The social demands of the community with which a mentally retarded child must cope during his development are touched upon.
Through experience and based on previous history, information as to the social status and observation data along with results of the exploratory therapy, it was possible to divide the emotionally disturbed children into diagnostic categories used for normal children. The same therapy techniques were used as with normal children in a certain stage of development.