Mental Retardation: Psychosocial Interventions

Psychosocial Interventions

Programmatic and Educational Approaches

The goal of these interventions is to provide a proper living and programmatic environment. For instance, certain persons eas-ily become over-stimulated, anxious and disruptive in noisy and confused large workshops; arranging for a smaller and quieter workroom is preferable to a prescription for a neuroleptic. The vocational and educational program should be individualized and focus on developing the person’s strengths and providing an op-portunity for success. In turn, this will lead to results such as an improvement in self-image. Many persons with severe men-tal retardation are placed in prevocational training indefinitely, for example, screwing or unscrewing nuts and bolts, although no one expects them ever to be employed on an assembly line. They often engage in a struggle with caregivers because of their noncompliance and may resort to aggression, which leads to removal for a “time out” and thus avoidance of a boring task. Creating a more suitable task – even such as making rounds of the workshop to collect or deliver materials – might be more in-teresting and appropriate. Functional analysis of behavior is an invaluable guide to these interventions. As discussed previously, such approaches should be explored prior to resorting to use of medications for disruptive behaviors