Imbecile

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The term imbecile was once used by psychiatrists to denote a category of people with moderate to severe intellectual disability, as well as a type of criminal. [1] [2] The word arises from the Latin word imbecillus, meaning weak, or weak-minded. [3] It originally referred to people of the second order in a former and discarded classification of intellectual disability, with a mental age of three to seven years and an IQ of 25–50, above "idiot" (IQ below 25) and below "moron" (IQ of 51–70). [4] In the obsolete medical classification (ICD-9, 1977), these people were said to have "moderate mental retardation" or "moderate mental subnormality" with IQ of 35–49, as they are usually capable of some degree of communication, guarding themselves against danger and performing simple mechanical tasks under supervision. [5] [6]

The meaning was further refined into mental and moral imbecility. [7] [8] The concepts of "moral insanity", "moral idiocy"," and "moral imbecility" led to the emerging field of eugenic criminology, which held that crime can be reduced by preventing "feeble-minded" people from reproducing. [9] [10]

"Imbecile" as a concrete classification was popularized by psychologist Henry H. Goddard [11] and was used in 1927 by United States Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in his ruling in the forced-sterilization case Buck v. Bell , 274 U.S. 200 (1927). [12]

The concept is closely associated with psychology, psychiatry, criminology, and eugenics. However, the term imbecile quickly passed into vernacular usage as a derogatory term. It fell out of professional use in the 20th century in favor of mental retardation. [13]

Phrases such as "mental retardation", "mentally retarded", and "retarded" are also subject to the euphemism treadmill: initially used in a medical manner, they gradually took on derogatory connotation. This had occurred with the earlier synonyms (for example, moron, imbecile, cretin, and idiot, formerly used as scientific terms in the early 20th century). Professionals searched for connotatively neutral replacements. In the United States, "Rosa's Law" changed references in many federal statutes to "mental retardation" to refer instead to "intellectual disability". [14]

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Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927), is a decision of the United States Supreme Court, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in which the Court ruled that a state statute permitting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, including the intellectually disabled, "for the protection and health of the state" did not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Despite the changing attitudes in the coming decades regarding sterilization, the Supreme Court has never expressly overturned Buck v. Bell. It is widely believed to have been weakened by Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535 (1942), which involved compulsory sterilization of male habitual criminals. Legal scholar and Holmes biographer G. Edward White, in fact, wrote, "the Supreme Court has distinguished the case [Buck v. Bell] out of existence". In addition, federal statutes, including the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, provide protections for people with disabilities, defined as both physical and mental impairments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry H. Goddard</span> American psychologist and eugenicist (1866–1957)

Henry Herbert Goddard was a prominent American psychologist, eugenicist, and segregationist during the early 20th century. He is known especially for his 1912 work The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness, which he himself came to regard as flawed for its ahistoric depiction of the titular family, and for being the first to translate the Binet intelligence test into English in 1908 and distributing an estimated 22,000 copies of the translated test across the United States. He also introduced the term "moron" for clinical use.

The term feeble-minded was used from the late 19th century in Europe, the United States and Australasia for disorders later referred to as illnesses or deficiencies of the mind.

<i>The Kallikak Family</i> Eugenics book by Henry Herbert Goddard

The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness was a 1912 book by the American psychologist and eugenicist Henry H. Goddard, dedicated to his patron Samuel Simeon Fels. Supposedly an extended case study of Goddard’s for the inheritance of "feeble-mindedness", a general category referring to a variety of mental disabilities including intellectual disability, learning disabilities, and mental illness, the book is noted for factual inaccuracies that render its conclusions invalid. Goddard believed that a variety of mental traits were hereditary and that society should limit reproduction by people possessing these traits.

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The Walter E. Fernald State School, later the Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center, was the Western hemisphere's oldest publicly funded institution serving people with developmental disabilities. Originally a Victorian sanatorium, it became a "poster child" for the American eugenics movement during the 1920s. It later was the scene of medical experiments in the 20th century. Investigations into this research led to new regulations regarding human research in children.

The obsolete medical terms Mongolian idiocy and Mongolism referred to a specific type of mental deficiency, associated with the genetic disorder now known as Down syndrome. The obsolete term for a person with this syndrome was Mongolian idiot.

The Vineland Training School is a non-profit organization in Vineland, New Jersey with the mission of educating people with developmental disabilities so they can live independently. It has been a leader in research and testing.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intellectual disability</span> Generalized neurodevelopmental disorder

Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability in the United Kingdom and formerly mental retardation, is a generalized neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by significantly impaired intellectual and adaptive functioning. It is defined by an IQ under 70, in addition to deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors that affect everyday, general living. Intellectual functions are defined under DSM-V as reasoning, problem‑solving, planning, abstract thinking, judgment, academic learning, and learning from instruction and experience, and practical understanding confirmed by both clinical assessment and standardized tests. Adaptive behavior is defined in terms of conceptual, social, and practical skills involving tasks performed by people in their everyday lives.

Moron is a term once used in psychology and psychiatry to denote mild intellectual disability. The term was closely tied with the American eugenics movement. Once the term became popularized, it fell out of use by the psychological community, as it was used more commonly as an insult than as a psychological term. It is similar to imbecile and idiot.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fairview Training Center</span> Hospital in Oregon, United States

The Fairview Training Center was a state-run facility for people with developmental disabilities in Salem, Oregon, United States. Fairview was established in 1907 as the State Institution for the Feeble-Minded. The hospital opened on December 1, 1908, with 39 patients transferred from the Oregon State Hospital for the Insane. Before its closure in 2000, Fairview was administered by the Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS). DHS continued to operate the Eastern Oregon State Hospital in Pendleton until October 31, 2009.

The Mongol in Our Midst: A Study of Man and His Three Faces is the title of the pseudo-scientific book written by British physician Francis Graham Crookshank and published in 1924.

The Idiots Act 1886 was an act of Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was intended to give "... facilities for the care, education, and training of Idiots and Imbeciles".

Rosa's Law is a United States law which replaced several instances of "mental retardation" in law with "intellectual disability". The bill was introduced as S.2781 in the United States Senate on November 17, 2009, by Barbara Mikulski (D-MD). It passed the Senate unanimously on August 5, 2010, then the House of Representatives on September 22, and was signed into law by President Barack Obama on October 5. The law is named for Rosa Marcellino, a girl with Down syndrome who was nine years old when it became law, and who, according to President Barack Obama, "worked with her parents and her siblings to have the words 'mentally retarded' officially removed from the health and education code in her home state of Maryland."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mental Deficiency Act 1913</span> Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Mental Deficiency Act 1913 was an act of Parliament of the United Kingdom creating provisions for the institutional treatment of people deemed to be "feeble-minded" and "moral defectives". "It proposed an institutional separation so that mental defectives should be taken out of Poor Law institutions and prisons into newly established colonies."

Institutions for Defective Delinquents (IDDs) were created in the United States as a result of the eugenic criminology movement. The practices in these IDDs contain many traces of the eugenics that were first proposed by Sir Francis Galton in the late 1800s. Galton believed that "our understanding of the laws of heredity [could be used] to improve the stock of humankind." Galton eventually expanded on these ideas to suggest that individuals deemed inferior, those in prisons or asylums and those with hereditary diseases, would be discouraged from having children.

In modern usage, retard is a pejorative term either for someone with a mental disability or for someone who is considered stupid, slow to understand, or ineffective in some way. The adjective retarded is in the same way used for something very foolish or stupid. Because it is now considered offensive, the word is commonly referred to by the euphemisms "r-word" and "r-slur".

State schools are a type of institution for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the United States. These institutions are run by individual states. These state schools were and are famous for abuse and neglect. In many states, the residents were involuntary sterilized during the eugenics era. Many states have closed state schools as part of the deinstitutionalisation movement.

References

  1. ↑ Fernald, Walter E. (1912). The imbecile with criminal instincts. Fourth edition. Boston: Ellis. OCLC   543795982.
  2. ↑ Duncan, P. Martin; Millard, William (1866). A manual for the classification, training, and education of the feeble-minded, imbecile, and idiotic. Longmans, Green, and Co.
  3. ↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Imbecile"  . Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 14 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 331.
  4. ↑ Sternberg, Robert J. (2000). Handbook of Intelligence. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-0-521-59648-0.
  5. ↑ World Health Organization (1977). Manual of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases, Injuries, and Causes of Death (PDF). Vol. 1. Jeneva. p. 212.
  6. ↑ "Definition of imbecile | Dictionary.com". www.dictionary.com.
  7. ↑ Kerlin, Isaac N. (1889). "Moral imbecility". Proceedings of the Association of Medical Officers of American Institutions for Idiotic and Feeble-minded Persons, 15–18.
  8. ↑ Fernald, Walter E. (1 April 1909). "The imbecile with criminal instincts". American Journal of Psychiatry . 65(4):731–749.
  9. ↑ Rafter, Nicole Hahn (1998). Creating Born Criminals. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press. ISBN   978-0-252-06741-9.
  10. ↑ Tredgold, A. F. (1921). "Moral Imbecility". Proc R Soc Med , 1921; 14(Sect Psych): 13–22.
  11. ↑ Goddard, Henry Herbert (1915). The Criminal Imbecile; an Analysis of Three Remarkable Murder Cases . New York: The Macmillan Company.
  12. ↑ Lombardo, Paul A. (2008). Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck V. Bell. JHU Press, ISBN   978-0-8018-9010-9
  13. ↑ Kaplan, Robert M.; Saccuzzo, Dennis P. (2008). Psychological Testing: Principles, Applications, and Issues. Cengage Learning, ISBN   978-0-495-09555-2
  14. ↑ Sweet, Lynn (October 5, 2010). "Obama signs 'Rosa's Law;' 'mental retardation' out, 'intellectual disability' in Archived January 17, 2013, at the Wayback Machine ". Chicago Sun-Times .
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