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o We as a nation confronted mental retardation as a major national social, educational, and health problem calling for legal and moral commitment at all levels;

o The problem was exposed to the widest possible citizen awareness, interest, involvement and action, ceasing to be the concern solely of a closed, professional group;

o We took the revolutionary step of treating mental retardation as a problem in national human resources, moving to narrow the research-and-service gap so that prevention programs could be launched and a significant percentage of the mentally retarded made self-sufficient contributing citizens;

o The national concern about the retarded was backed in action by allocation of sufficient money and manpower to make real progress possible in all areas -- research, prevention, planning, and services.

These recommendations were challenges put to the nation by a group of dedicated specialists who knew that the most effective and enduring works in the United States are those undertaken by an informed, aroused citizenry. The recommendations resulted in legislation that attacked the problem through research, professional training, programs of prevention, and state and community planning.

SINCE ITS APPOINTMENT A YEAR AGO, YOUR COMMITTEE ON MENTAL RETARDATION has carried on an intensive effort to learn and evaluate the nation's progress in combating retardation. The Committee has inquired into the status, trends, and needs of programs for the mentally retarded nationally, in the states, and locally. This inquiry has proceeded along several lines:

o A survey that sought to learn the adequacy of present programs from a nationwide sample of 3,000 persons.

o Field interviews with community mental retardation programmers, citizen and volunteer leaders, state planners and coordinators, training and manpower development experts, and residential facility superintendents and staffs. These interviews have been carried out in 15 states across the nation.

o Forum meetings held in the field by the Committee's subcommittee on the state of the nation in mental retardation programs. These meetings have brought Committee members together with state, community, and private agency workers as well as interested citizens for an on-the-scene look at how the needs of the retarded are being met.

o Fact-finding meetings with key staff from the wide range of federal agencies operating programs or interested in the field of mental retardation. (Among these -- and demonstrating the scope of federal involvement -- have been the Department of Labor, Department of Defense, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Economic Opportunity, Civil Service Commission, Veterans Administration, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, as well as several Department of Health, Education, and Welfare bureaus.) All federal agencies having programs are reporting data on their activity and experience.

FROM these and other, special studies, we can report that the last five years have seen an historic emergence of mental retardation and the mentally retarded from isolation and public indifference.

MANY factors have contributed to this development, among them major federal involvement in programs for or benefiting the retarded, a reawakening in the states to their own social service needs, and a national information campaign by public and private agencies together to build public awareness and understanding of mental retardation and the mentally retarded.

Major successes include:

o All 50 states (plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands) now have a written plan for providing comprehensive services for the retarded.

o Trained mentally retarded workers are in wide demand in industry and government. Over 3,000 mentally retarded workers are now employed in 39 federal agencies; until 3 years ago, examination procedures barred all such workers from federal employment. Industrial launderers, department stores, motels, and electronic component assembly plants are among the firms reporting success with trained retarded workers.

o Successful state action has brought significant progress in preventing or treating conditions that can lead to retardation. The desirability of testing infants at birth for phenylketonuria (PKU) is now accepted in legislation in 38 states and carried out voluntarily by physicians in several others. Anti-measles campaigns are being conducted in nearly all of the 50 states.

o Funded by $77 million from federal, state, and private sources, twelve mental retardation research centers and 14 university-affiliated training facilities will constitute a beginning network of basic research and training resources in mental retardation for the nation. In addition, the first 89 federally aided community facilities will serve another 10,000 retarded persons.

o Many of the 77,000 mentally retarded children of U.S. armed forces members, long lost in a limbo between national neglect and state residency laws, now are able to receive help through special legislation enacted by Congress.