Report to the President, A Proposed Program for National Action to Combat Mental Retardation
This item is a report by the President's Panel on Mental Retardation titled, "A Proposed Program for National Action to Combat Mental Retardation."
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OCR Page 1 of 164
of 1 percent in some States to nearly 14 percent in others.
Regional rejection rates ranged from 1 percent in the Far
West to nearly 10 percent in the Southeast. Nationwide, 7
individuals were rejected for mental retardation for every
10 turned down for mental disease.
The Selective Service statistics also show a much heavier
prevalence of mental retardation among non-whites than in
the rest of the population. Draft rejection rates because
of mental deficiency were 6 times as high for non-whites as
they were for whites. Of the total rejections of 716,000
for mental deficiency, 325,000 were non-whites. In both
categories there were substantial regional variation in the
rejection rates. Among the whites, the rejections in the
Southwest were 6 times as high for this cause as in the Far
West. Among non-whites rejections in the Southwest were 4
times as high as in the Northwest. However, in every region
the rejection rate for non-whites was at least 3 times as
high as that for whites; but the highest regional rejection
rates for whites exceeded the lowest regional rejection
rates for non-whites. Modern science has indicated that such
variations are due to lack of opportunity rather than heredity
or mental endowment.
Data from a representative nationwide statistical sample on
the basis of which the Stanford-Binet intelligence tests were
standardized in 1937 confirm the geographic variations in
Terms
Subject
Mental retardation