Bill looks to remove ‘retardation’ from state agency title

Published 1:16 pm Monday, April 6, 2009

Terry McGill, director at the Cullman County Center for the Developmentally Disabled, knows words can hurt. For many years, the term “mentally retarded” has been used in a negative way.

The term was better than other words used to categorize the disabled, said McGill.

“When it (CCCDD) first started, they labeled our clients as idiots and imbeciles,” McGill said. “Our clients are productive citizens.”

State Rep. Randy Davis (R-Daphne) agrees the term “mentally retarded” has a negative stigma attached.

The Senate Health Committee approved a bill last week by Davis that would take the words “Mental Retardation” out of the Alabama Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation title. The bill has already passed the House and it now has to go to the Senate for a final vote that would send it to the governor for signing into law.

Davis said this bill is to follow up on a bill passed last year that took the controversial term out of the code of the Alabama Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation.

“This is just a follow up to recognize that we are living in an enlightened world,” Davis said in a phone interview. “We look at disabilities in a different way, not in a negative side, but a positive side.”

He wanted to make sure the commissioner of the department will use different language when referring to people who are clinically “mentally retarded.”

Betty Hauk, guidance counselor with the Child Development Center in Cullman, agreed the term is negative.

“It is absolutely gut wrenching when you have to tell parents their child is mentally retarded,” Hauk said.

She said even though it is a clinical term, whenever it is used, negativity follows.

“We think of it more as a label, but people don’t know how to use it. It is a very harsh term,” she said.

Hauk said many children today use the term in a mean way. She said people constantly say someone or something is retarded.

Charles Clemmons, principal at the Cullman County Child Development Center, said the term needs to be changed.

“It’s just a label and term we have to use,” he said. “But I think it would remove some of the stigma that label carries if we changed it.”

Clemmons said “retarded” is a clinical term, but it always seems to be used in a negative way in referring to “cognitively impaired” people.

“I think they are looking at using cognitively impaired, which might be more accurate,” Clemmons said.

He said the word “retarded” is offensive to parents and students at his school.

The CCCDD has about 100 daily clients. It also has a summer program and a daycare, where special-needs children along with other children are placed together. McGill said this helps the special-needs children to model the others.

“We have fun,” said CCCDD client Elizabeth Box. “We just got back from vacation and people didn’t treat us like we were handicapped. They treated us with respect, like we like for people to do.”

She has been going to the center since 1997 and enjoys it. She works in a factory there where they break down and recycle up to 225,000 cardboard boxes per month for Wal-Mart, with which they have a contract.

“It is their job. They come to work and get paid,” said Tina Corbin-Bennett, programs director at the CCCDD.

Corbin-Bennett has a special-needs child and does not like the term “mentally retarded.” She said many of the older generation use the term, but now there are so many different diagnoses for different disabilities.

“The term is always negative, but there is nothing negative about a child,” she said. “Back then everyone was known as mentally retarded.”

She said she does not even like the words “developmentally disabled.”

“I just say my child has other abilities,” she said. “They have goals, aspirations and dreams. They are people too.”

McGill wishes society would be able to get over labeling people. He said because of society, everything and everyone has to have a title.

“I wish we would get away from terms,” he said. “My feelings are it would be a good thing to remove that term. It makes you wonder why you have to even label people.”

Charese Morris, assistant director at the CCCDD, said they have never used the term at their center.

“I think some people do find it offensive,” she said. “We have never used that term.”

Corbin-Bennett agreed.

“We don’t use that term and haven’t in a long time,” she said. “We don’t just go with the standards, we exceed them.”

Morris said when the center was first opened, they made sure to go away from the term “mentally retarded” and to not use it in the title or at the center.

“I think it is the changing of the times,” she said. “We are getting away from the word.”

She said although clients may not find it offensive, she sees the need for the change.

“It’s something we’ve moved on from many years ago,” she said. “Words and terms have changed so much.”

Morris said she spoke with her clients after President Barack Obama made an off-handed comment about the Special Olympics during a recent appearance on The Tonight Show. She said the kids just laughed about it and said some even have their own bowling shoes and balls and could probably beat him in a game.

According to the Center for Disease Control and kidshealth.org, mental retardation is a term not commonly used anymore because it is offensive. It is a term once used to describe someone who learns and develops more slowly than others.

Terms more commonly accepted now are intellectual disabled or developmentally delayed.

Hauk said the term that will replace mentally retarded, whatever it may be, will eventually be used in a negative way.

“Honestly, I’m sure some out there will use the term,” she said. “But I don’t know that any term will be used as negatively as ‘retarded.’ It would be much easier to tell a parent their child is cognitively disabled than mentally retarded.”

McGill agreed there will always be people who will use whatever term is chosen in a derogatory way.

“There will always be people that view our clients in a negative way,” he said. “The way you overcome that is to be a productive citizen.”

The bill would also remove the words “mentally retarded” from state laws and replace it with a more up-to-date term, “people with an intellectual disability.”

Corbin-Bennett believes whatever term is chosen will be better than ‘mentally retarded.”

“The terminology changes the view,” she said. “I think it is a step in a positive direction.”