Intelligence quotient I. The vast majority of people in the United States have I. To be diagnosed as having mental retardation, a person must have an I. If a person scores below 70 on a properly administered and scored I. Although all persons with mental retardation have significantly impaired mental development, their intellectual level can vary considerably.
An estimated 89 percent of all people with retardation have I. For the lay person or non-specialist, the significance of a low I. That is, he cannot perform intellectual tasks beyond the capacity of a typical ten-year-old. According to a psychologist who evaluated Mata, "his ability to express himself and his ability to recognize the meaning of common words were at the level of a nine- to ten-year-old child He lacked basic understanding of familiar processes.
He did not know the function of the stomach, where the sun sets, nor why stamps are needed on letters Arithmetic abilities were limited to addition and subtraction with the help of concrete aids such as fingers. The threshold I. Limitations in adaptive skills. Mental retardation entails significant limitations in two or more of the basic skill areas necessary to cope with the requirements of everyday life, e.
He or she may have trouble sitting or standing still, or may smile constantly and inappropriately. Limitations in everyday coping skills may be more or less severe, ranging from individuals who can live alone with intermittent support, to individuals who require extensive hands-on assistance and guidance, to individuals who require constant supervision and care. For most people with mental retardation, limited adaptive skills make ordinary life extremely difficult unless a caring family or social support system exists to provide assistance and structure.
Offenders with mental retardation who have been convicted of committing capital crimes typically grew up poor and without networks of special support and services -- often without even a supportive, loving family. They functioned as best they could without professional assistance, often required to fend for themselves while still teenagers.
If they were able to work, it was at basic menial tasks. After being hired as a kitchen dishwasher he was fired when he could not learn to operate the dishwasher. Family members reported that "if one told Billy exactly what to do and took him to the place where it was to be done [he] could do some work. If he were left on his own and not specifically guided, he could not do it.
Manifestation before the age of eighteen. Mental retardation is present from childhood. It can be caused by any condition which impairs development of the brain before, during, or after birth. The causes are numerous: hereditary factors; genetic abnormalities e. Down's syndrome ; poor prenatal care; infections during pregnancy; abnormal delivery; illness during infancy; toxic substances e.
Regardless of the cause, part of the definition of mental retardation is that it manifests itself during an individual's developmental period, usually deemed to be birth through age eighteen. Many psychiatrists argue that the age before which signs of retardation must become manifest should be raised from eighteen to twenty-two, to reflect the difficulties in obtaining accurate age records for many people with this disability and the differing rates at which people develop.
An ordinary adult cannot suddenly "become" mentally retarded. An adult may, for reasons related to accident or illness, suffer a catastrophic loss in intellectual functioning and adaptive skills, but this would not make him or her "mentally retarded," since by definition mental retardation starts during childhood.
One implication of this is that mental retardation is virtually impossible for an adult to fake: when evaluating whether an adult is mentally retarded, testers look not only at I. Early diagnosis can help the person with mental retardation obtain access to appropriate special education, training, clinical programs, and social services during important developmental years -- as well as through life.
With help from family, social workers, teachers, and friends, many mentally retarded people succeed in simple jobs, maintain their own households, marry, and give birth to children of normal intelligence.
There is no "cure" for mental retardation. Characteristics and Significance of Mental Retardation. Although mental retardation of any degree has profound implications for a person's cognitive and social development, it is a condition which in many cases is not readily apparent. While some of the mentally retarded, such as those whose retardation is caused by Down's syndrome or fetal alcohol syndrome, have characteristically distinctive facial features, most cannot be identified by their physical appearance alone.
Unless their cognitive impairment is unusually severe e. Many capital offenders with mental retardation did not have their condition diagnosed until trial or during post-conviction proceedings. A person with mental retardation, according to one expert, "is always the least smart person in any group.
This leads to fear, dependence and an experience of terrible stigma and devaluation. They may wrap themselves in a "cloak of competence," hiding their disability even from those who want to help them, including their lawyers. At times, even competent lawyers who are anxious to help their clients may fail to identify their clients' retardation or may be unable to access funds for a psychological evaluation.
Cruz nonetheless insisted to reporters that, although he was perhaps "slow in reading, slow in learning," he was not mentally retarded. He had gone through much of his schooling allowing his younger sister to complete his homework for him.
When he was given papers to read in connection to his case, he would carefully stare at them. If he was asked a substantive question, he usually responded, "I don't recall. He lied about finishing high school. He was actually in special education classes and did not finish the sixth grade. He was drafted into the army and discharged because of his mental retardation.
He lied about his service record. He often made things up so that people would not suspect mental retardation. The fact that many people with mental retardation can and do live relatively "normal" lives with their families or in the community, coupled with the fact that most of them do not look different from people with average intellectual capabilities, can make it difficult for the public to appreciate the significance of their condition.
But, as the late U. A person with mental retardation will have limitations of a greater or lesser extent in every aspect of cognitive functioning. He or she will have limited abilities to learn including reading, writing, and arithmetic and to reason, plan, understand, judge, and discriminate. Mental retardation truncates the capacity to think about intended actions, to consider their possible consequences, and to exercise restraint.
One expert has summarized the attributes of mental retardation as follows:. Almost uniformly, individuals with mental retardation have grave difficulties in language and communication.
They have problems with attention, memory, intellectual rigidity, and in moral development or moral understanding. They are susceptible to suggestion and readily acquiesce to other adults or authority figures People with mental retardation have limited knowledge because their impaired intelligence has prevented them from learning very much.
They also have grave problems in logic, foresight, planning, strategic thinking, and understanding consequences. Many of these limitations, of course, characterize children. But while children will outgrow these limitations as their brains develop and mature, people with mental retardation will not.
In limiting a person's cognitive development and ability to learn, mental retardation also limits the ability to understand abstract concepts, including moral concepts. While most defendants with mental retardation who have committed a crime know they have done something wrong, they often cannot explain why the act was wrong.
The inability to comprehend abstract concepts may include the inability to fully understand the meaning of "death" or "murder". Before his execution, Mason asked one of his legal advisors for advice on what to wear to his funeral. At his clemency hearing, the chair of the Louisiana pardons board asked Sawyer if he knew what murder was. Sawyer responded, "That's when the breath leaves your body.
Since they often face abuse, taunts, and rejection because of their low intelligence, people with mental retardation can be desperate for approval and friendship. Eager to be accepted and eager to please, people with mental retardation are characteristically highly suggestible.
Washington was so suggestible and eager to please, according to a former employer, that "you could get [him] to confess that he walked on the moon. L ow intelligence and limited adaptive skills also mean that people with mental retardation often miss social "cues" that other adults understand. Their inappropriate social responses can be misinterpreted by people who do not know they have mental retardation or who do not understand the nature of retardation.
They may act in ways that seem suspicious, even when they have done nothing wrong. When questioned by police or other authority figures, they often smile inappropriately, fail to remain still when ordered to do so, or act agitated and furtive when they should be calm and polite. Others may fall asleep at the wrong moment. Welcome has mental retardation and, according to psychiatric testimony presented at his trial, has a mental age of eight. He smiled incessantly during his capital murder trial, an almost involuntary defense mechanism developed in response to a lifetime of taunts.
As his defense attorney noted, "Many people with retardation smile a lot They are anxious for approval, and have learned that smiling is one way to get [it].
But they don't have the judgment to know when to smile. He was sentenced to death and remains today on death row. Trial counsel were not aware that they had mental retardation. But their tendency to sleep peacefully during their trials helped alert post-conviction lawyers to their mental disability. In the case of White, who snored loudly during the penalty phase of his trial, the prosecutor argued that his conduct indicated his lack of remorse for his crime and his lack of respect for the criminal justice system.
Both Fairchild and White were sentenced to death and executed. The vast majority of people with mental retardation never break the law. Although people with mental retardation constitute somewhere between 2. It may also be that some of the people with mental retardation who are serving prison sentences are innocent, but they confessed to crimes they did not commit because of their characteristic suggestibility and desire to please authority figures. See Section IV below. Lawyers maintain that a criminal's life won't hinge on how well he or she answers true-or-false questions, and won't be saved if the defendant tries to score poorly on a test.
School records often are used as a factor in judging mental capacity, and the latest a diagnosis could be made is age Though the decision only applies to about 2. The decision could contain precedents that would lead the Supreme Court to ban the execution of other groups, such as juveniles, Gunawardena-Vaughn said. We'll notify you here with news about. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? Comments 0.
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