As noted by GorillaMan the normal term in the UK - at least it was when I was a school Governor a few years back - is ‘learning difficulties’. Not surprising “retarded” is avioided, Miss Marcus and her friends routinely use " 'tard " as a mild insult amonst themselves e.g. “Betty is being a real tard over that boy she met last week.”
Never heard that quantified before, but anecdotally I have seen this happen several times. “Special” is now a childish term of insult. At my school, an autistic kid was given the Progress Prize, and then “progress” became a term of insult.
The former playground insult “mongy” (from “mongoloid”), has now been replaced by “downs” (from Down or Down’s Syndrome) to match the correct description of the syndrome.
A friend who is a teacher reports that children educated in the learning-difficulties unit of her school are now referred to as “units”, and “unit” is a term of insult for anyone saying or acting stupid.
You can’t win - most kids are shits to each other - so it’s time to give up, in my opinion.
To this American, “learning difficulties” sounds like somebody with dyslexia or something, not somebody who is MR.
In a school environment, the phrase does then blur the boundary through to special educational needs in general. Which isn’t a problem, because the school need not be concerned with the specific diagnosis per se, but with how their educational needs are affected. In a medical environment, then obviously it’s a different matter.
In my line of work, mental retardation is a specific diagnosable impairment with significant legal implications, so it is crucial to define whether an individual is or is not mentally retarded (as opposed to - say, learning disabled, borderline intellectual functioning, etc.)
I think that general usage of the term “retarded” to describe things that are - um - not overly intelligent, is at best insensitive. But then I wonder exactly who is taking offense at the usage, and whether THEY are being overly sensitive…
My wife is a psychotherapist and she and I have had this same discussion. Yes, the term has been bastardized into something that connotes derision, but it is a perfectly acceptable term of art. For instance, the state agency that deals with such matters here is the Virginia Department of Menthal Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance Abuse Services.
I like sending messages to clients along the lines of, “I’m sorry, but work volume is very high at the moment so please expect my response to be mildly retarded.”
They’re rarely disappointed.
What was the “niggardly” debate? I assume it has something to do with that word sounding racist.
The opposite of “advanced”. Delayed wouldn’t really be the same as retarded.
To address the OP – my wife works for The ARC. If you ask anyone there what “ARC” stands for, it doesn’t stand for anything anymore…it’s just “The ARC”. It used to stand for the “Association of Retarded Citizens”, but not anymore.
The NAACP will be glad to hear that.
I’ve always thought it’s okay to say “mentally retarded”, rather than just plain ol’ “retarded”.
(Don’t get me started on “Differently Abled” though. The first time I heard that, I wanted to puke and cry at the same time)
Seems to me quite a few dictionaries (American Heritage, Merriam-Webster, OED) give “delay” as a definition of “retard” and vice versa (as verbs). I don’t think “retarded” is the opposite of “advanced” in a way which “delayed” isn’t [except for the connotations “retarded” has acquired through attachment to the specific sense of “mentally retarded”, which “delayed” would be just as capable of picking up].
Retarded is considered the opposite of advanced when speaking of engine timing. When a spark fires at a point before top dead center, it is called advanced, and if it fires after TDC, it is said to be retarded. Worthy of note is that an engine with retarded timing is kinda slow and lacks power.
What happens if it’s advanced?
I work with DD people. The folders I have on my clients (or “consumers” as my company calls them now) still lists “Mental Retardation” as a clinical diagnosis. Generally speaking, it’s not considered offensive to refer to MR as a diagnosis or to “people with MR,” but you want to avoid defining them by their diagnosis. Practically speaking, you call them by their names, their peeers as their "housemates, “coworkers,” “friends” or whatever and you refer obliquely to their disabilities simply as “disabilities.” Not all DD or mentally disabled people even have MR.
:dubious:
Kinda fast with an abundance of power?
Sounds like an autistic friend of mine.
The danger is that you’ll end up using this phrase for people who do not come into the catagory described.