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The Normalization Principle And Its Human Management Implications

From: Changing Patterns in Residential Services for the Mentally Retarded
Creator: Bengt Nirje (author)
Date: January 10, 1969
Publisher: President's Committee on Mental Retardation, Washington, D.C.
Source: Available at selected libraries

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4. Normalization also means an opportunity to undergo normal developmental experiences of the life cycle:

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a. Children should have available warmth of atmosphere, rich sensory stimulation and surroundings, and settings of proper proportions. Handicapped individuals especially need to be fed with stimuli which will nourish knowledge and abilities. In cases where a retarded child cannot live with his own family, this aspect is of special importance. In normal society, small children live in a world especially structured for them, guided and taught by a few significant adults. In child-care homes, turnover of personnel should be minimal, thus offering the children basic security and opportunities for identification of the stand-in parents. These essential demands have proved almost impossible to realize in large heterogeneous institutions, where one is confronted with the specific attitudes of the personnel and the adult retarded. It is therefore completely wrong to let mentally retarded children live in the same institutions as retarded adults.

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b. Youths of school age in normal society also live in a world specifically structured for them. Childhood is a highly developmental period of great importance for learning about one's own personal abilities and potentialities, for obtaining understanding of oneself, and for building self-confidence that can serve as a sound basis for life after the school years. It is also a period during which social experiences outside the classroom are very important for personal stimulation and development. Youngsters and adolescents of school age who are retarded should therefore never live in a confined setting together with mentally retarded adults, because the young people's socialization and impressions of life should be gained as much as possible through contacts with normal rather than a deviant society.

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c. For the mentally retarded, growing from adolescence into adulthood is often a longer, more painful, and more uncertain process than for others. Their image of themselves often becomes warped and confused. They are not always accepted, treated, and respected as adults. Here, the attitudes expressed toward them by others are of utmost importance, whether these others are parents, relatives, or institution personnel. Thus, like everybody else, the retarded should experience the coming of adulthood through marked changes in the settings and circumstances of their lives. Just as it is normal for children to live with their parents, so it is normal for adults to move away from home and start a life of their own, as independently as possible. Therefore, it is wrong for mentally retarded adults to live on the same premises as children and youngsters, because this serves as a constant reminder that they are different from other adults, and that they are as dependent as children. Training programs for retarded young adults should assist them to become as competent and independent in their personal daily routine as possible, and to develop social skills which will enable them to take part in the regular community life as much as they can.

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d. The period of old age, when work is no longer possible or feasible, consists for most people of contacts with the familiar settings and acquaintances that have given life so much of its content and leaning. Therefore, alternate living facilities for the aged retarded should be arranged close to the place where they have spent their adult periods of life, in case they cannot remain in that very place.

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5. The normalization principle also means that the choices, wishes, and desires of the mentally retarded themselves have to be taken into consideration as nearly as possible, and respected. In May 1968 a conference was arranged for mentally retarded young adults, IQs about 35-70, from eight cities in Sweden. In this conference, these young men and women, 18-30 years old, discussed vocational training and their leisure-time and vacation problems. They wanted a stronger voice in their own leisure-time programs, student clubs, and labor union participation. They objected to being included in activities with children below the age of 15 or 16, and to being in too large and too heterogeneous groups. In discussing group study tours and group vacation trips, they stressed their demand to be only in small homogeneous groups. They found communication in large groups unsuitable, as it is more difficult to hear and understand what is being communicated. Obviously, they had too often had the normal tourist experience of moving in herds.

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6. Normalization also means living in a bisexual world. Accordingly, facilities should provide for male and female staff members. When it comes to the integration of retarded boys and girls or men and women, the 1967 Stockholm Symposium on "Legislative Aspects of Mental Retardation" of the International League of Societies for the Mentally Handicapped (1) came to the following conclusion; "Being fully mindful of the need to preserve the necessary safeguards in the relations between mentally retarded men and women, the members of the Symposium are of the opinion that the dangers involved have been greatly exaggerated in the past. This has often resulted in the unfortunate segregation of the sexes in an unnatural way and has militated against their interests and proper development.


(1) The League is an international federation of associations of parents of the mentally retarded. The symposium, published by the League, summarizes basic principles upon which practices in the field of mental retardation should be based. These principles were derived from a definition of the rights of the mentally retarded.

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