Pennsylvania considers dropping R-word from state language

From the Standard Speaker in Pa.:

HARRISBURG - A senator is seeking to purge the phrase "mental retardation" from official use on grounds it is archaic and hurtful.

A bill sponsored recently by Sen. Andy Dinniman, D-19, West Chester, would substitute the phrase "intellectual disability." The legislation reflects a recent trend among many advocates for the disabled to drop mental retardation, a term that has been in common use since the 1960s.

"It is time to move past using this archaic term - a term that has a derisive and hurtful connotation to our family members, friends and neighbors with intellectual disabilities," said Dinniman.

He calls his proposal the "words do matter" bill.

The bill would mandate use of the new phrase throughout state and local governments by renaming the 1966 Mental Health and Mental Retardation Act as the Mental Health and Intellectual Disability Act.

If the bill is enacted, noticeable changes would include new designations for the five state-run centers for the mentally retarded at White Haven, Selinsgrove, Polk, Hamburg and Ebensburg.

The bill defines intellectual disability as having "significant subaverage general intellectual functioning that is accompanied by significant limitations in adaptive functioning in at least two of the following skill areas: communication, self-care, home living, social and interpersonal skills, use of community resources, self-direction, functional academic skills, work, leisure, health and safety. The onset must occur before the individual's 22nd birthday."

A number of national advocacy groups began a movement several years ago to encourage the switch to intellectual disabilities, which is seen as more accurate and less pejorative, said Todd Dickinson, an official with ARC of Pennsylvania, an advocacy group.

Maryland adopted a language change law last year, while U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., has introduced similar legislation before Congress. Mikulski said her bill doesn't expand or diminish services, rights or educational opportunities.

Not all advocacy groups embrace the change.

VOR plans to keep its official name as "Voice of the Retarded." On its website at www.vor.net, VOR says it favors using mental retardation to refer to a defined group of people with defined services and eligibility criteria in contrast to the nondescriptive label of intellectual disabilities.