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The Needs Of Children

From: Speeches Of Rosemary F. Dybwad
Creator: Rosemary F. Dybwad (author)
Date: 1979
Source: Friends of the Samuel Gridley Howe Library and the Dybwad Family

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Symposium of ILSMH, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1979.

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It is very appropriate that the International League of Societies for the Mentally Handicapped celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child with a Symposium entitled, "The Mentally Retarded Child Today -- The Adult of Tomorrow." At the time that this United Nations Declaration was adopted, there was still a widespread belief that children with mental retardation remained children all their lives, were children who "never grew." They were, as the title of a widely acclaimed Canadian film indicated, "Eternal Children." Like its predecessor, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Declaration of the Rights of the Child basically emphasized the dignity inherent in the human existence, and for children, this dignity rests in our respect for their potential to become adults, their growth into adulthood.

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There has been a very significant change in this regard on a broad international scale, and the large number of national member associations of the International League who do not have or have removed the word children from their name furnishes just one indication of this change. But the title for our Symposium, "The Mentally Retarded Child Today -- The Adult of Tomorrow," goes farther. It obviously proclaims that the child, today still charactered and stereotyped as retarded, may tomorrow be just an adult. Does this mean "one of us" and no longer "one of them"?

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What are the chances that this goal might be reached? What are the impediments we must recognize and neutralize or combat? Piously the first factor we must deal with is that of health. To become a healthy adult a child should be born in a healthy environment to a healthy mother and get adequate nourishment and care during the early years. In industrial countries, very considerable progress has been made during the past twenty years in prenatal services, in attendance at birth, and in services to the baby and mother. Infant mortality and morbidity rates are closely watched by governments in these countries, and there is almost a competitive spirit to push progress ahead of neighboring countries. Special protection during pregnancy, free checkups on the newborn, and documentation such as the Austrian Mutter/Kind Pass (a health passport for mother and child) are offered with increasing frequency.

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But the situation is radically different in many of the developing countries. Far from having even marginal health care facilities and services, they cannot even assure the first requirement for survival, a minimum of nutrition. Maternal malnutrition to the extreme degree that is widespread in the world's poorest countries has been shown to be a significant contributing factor -- directly and indirectly -- to mental retardation in the newborn. Obviously, of equal significance is a minimum adequate nutrition for the infant during the early years of fastest growth. FAO, the Food and Agricultural Organization in the UN family, is indeed, in developing areas of the world, a major rehabilitation agency, with its mission to increase production of foodstuff and to work toward efficient and equitable distribution and transportation of available supplies.

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Parallel with FAO's efforts is the work of UNICEF, which technically is no longer called an Emergency Fund but whose work in arranging mass feeding for children certainly is and for a long time will continue to be of emergency nature. Added to this are the activities of the World Health Organization in the field of maternal and child health, epidemiology, and disease control.

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But what else needs to be done in countries whose children suffer extreme deprivation? A colleague of ours recently travelled to India to get a first hand experience of the mental retardation situation there and if possible offer some help. A letter from him has this to say:

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As you know quite well, the poverty is so severe in India that it is difficult knowing where to start. All efforts being done to help the poor are just scratching the surface of the known need ... Mother Teresa's homes have several hundred retarded children and some adults, but no education is being provided, only maintenance ... They primarily see their role as one where they provide T.L.C. and not training and not education... When the basic needs of food, shelter, and clothing are not being provided for so many millions, it would be difficult to spend limited resources on training handicapped persons. In India they must spend their time on issues relating to life, before they can address the issue of the quality of life.

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I am not surprised about his reaction because it is shared by many of our colleagues. However, there are some considerations that should be further pursued during our discussions. In the first place, while it is, of course, true that in India people are starving and are without minimum shelter, there are also cities like Bombay, Bangladore, and Delhi, where large numbers of people live in comfort and have university educations. If they have a handicapped child with blindness or mental retardation, they, like similarly situated parents elsewhere in the world, want their child to have health and educational services. Indeed, there are more than one hundred specialized programs for retarded children and adults in India. How can this all be reconciled?

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