MENTAL DEFICIENCY

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 131, 7 June 1929, Page 9

MENTAL DEFICIENCY

ENGLAND AND WALES

(F«in «Tlw p«tv R*pr«Mntative.) LONDON, 25th April. According to the report of the Mental Deficiency Committee, the number of children in England ana Wales between the ages of .7 and 16 who are mentally defective within the meaning °^ Section 55 of the Education Act, IJ-31, is approximately 105,000. rather more than three times as great as the number actually ascertained and certified by local education authorities. The number of lower-grade defective children, i.e., imbeciles and iaiots, under 16 years of age, on' the^afitual basis of the investigation, is at least 30,000. The committee is, however, convinced that this figure is an - under-estimate, because the ascertainment of younger children was necessarily incomplete. The total number of adult defectives of all grades in the whole country is certainly not less than 150,000. This number is two and a half times as great as that given in the returns submitted to the Board of Control of defectives of all ages brought to the notice of local M.M. authorities.

Of the 105,000 children, it is estimated, that about one-third, or 35,000, are educationally rather than socially defective, while the remaining twothirds, that is 70,000, are mentally defective within the meaning of the. Mental Deficiency Acts. If to thia figure (70,000) be added the 30,000 lowergrade defective children and the 150,000 adult defectives, the total number'of persons of all ages in England and Wales who are mentally defective in the true sense, that is, who are by reason of incomplete development, of mind incapable of independent social adaptation, is 250,000. - This number, which is based directly upon the actual numbers ascertained in the investigation, is an under-estimate, and, after allowing for the inevitable incompleteness of the ascertainment and making certain corrections, it is estimated that the total number of persons in England and-Wales who are mentally defective in the truo sense is at least 300,000, which is equivalent to an incidence of mental defect of eight per thousand total population. This number (300,----000) does not ineludo the 35,000 children whose defect is educational rather than social. v .