The mentally retarded have the same right to live in society as do the “normal”

“We must drop the biological approach to the mentally retarded and learn to treat them above all as individuals rather than a pathology. My intellect is far lower than that of any outstanding person, but I don’t feel defective. My child, too, should not be aware of his being defective, for he like everyone else feels joy and grief, pain and satisfaction,” says Rayisa Kravchenko, chairperson of Dzherela (Sources), a society to assist the physically handicapped and mentally retarded, and mother of one of the pupils.

On February 27, Dzherela presented a project called Scheme to Prevent the Institutionalization of the Kyiv-based Over-16 Mentally- Deficient Persons by Rendering Alternative Non-Institutional Assistance in Society.” De-institutionalization means adapting the mentally handicapped to living in society rather than taking them out of the usual family medium and putting them in an asylum-type institution. To keep up one such person in an asylum, the state allocates about 700 hryvnias a month, while his family- maintenance pension is 46 hryvnias. Almost half the mothers of retarded children polled pointed out they felt uneasy consigning their child to an asylum, for they were unable to protect him or her. Parents are certain the little individual should grow and develop among his loving near and dear. Candidate of sciences in psychology and senior research associate at the Institute of Psychology of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine Natalia Bastun, says, “Taking the child away from his family creates an emotional deficiency, which makes itself felt in maturity, considerably reducing that person’s ability to withstand stress and traumas. Most suicides are people who suffered an emotional deficiency in childhood. Lengthy emotional suppression impairs cognitive abilities and has a negative effect on the child’s education and overall mental development. As to children with limited mental capabilities, their intellectual losses caused by emotional deficiency could prove fatal.”

Integrating into society those with limited mental abilities is a double edged process. Those not disabled have to adjust to the disabled, with due account of their needs. Incidentally, it is considered prestigious in the West to have the handicapped on staff, for this creates a positive image of a given company. On the other hand, society provides the handicapped with an opportunity to begin their own integration. This above all means the campaign to de- institutionalize (reorganize) care facilities and turn them into homelike environments where the disabled can live independently with some support from the social services. On the other hand, changes in the appraisal of the content and objectives of education have made it possible to work out curricula and methods that substantially increase the social competence of the mentally retarded and allow them to achieve substantial progress in their intellectual development. The proposed program envisions working out a support system, which would accompany the mentally retarded person all his life, prepare him for as much independent life in society as possible, and take into account the greatest problem for this category of people, social adaptation. Obviously, the movement to integrate the mentally handicapped in Ukraine is only taking the first steps. These steps cannot solve the problem unless each of us in our own minds breaks our stereotypes about the disabled.