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The center would serve as a central storage and dissemination point for information on mental retardation and mental retardation programs. It would gather, systematize and furnish information on research, studies, programs and services throughout the nation and in other countries, employing the most up-to-date facilities and techniques for information gathering, storage, evaluation, retrieval, exchange and dissemination.

Consultative services, too, would be made available through the center to mental retardation program planners and leaders at all levels, and to state and community planners of comprehensive health and social services. Also available through this center should be a basic directory that will enable any citizen to locate a contact in his state for mental retardation program and information assistance.

To develop broad national participation, the center might be a public-private partnership, with the federal government, state governments, and private organizations in the mental retardation field assisting in its financing and costs.

6. Basic research, training in application of research, and rapid translation of research results into service program uses need continuing encouragement.

Far too little, even now, is known about mental retardation, its causes, and ways to combat and prevent it.

Biomedical research has been able to identify 25 of every 100 cases of mental retardation as associated with faulty genetic constitution or resulting from virus infections, accidents and diseases before birth or in early infancy. The body processes bringing about mental retardation in the other 75 percent of cases are still unknown, although nutritional, intellectual and cultural-environmental factors are often clearly at work.

Knowledge resulting from scientific research now makes it possible to prevent a tantalizing one to two percent of mental retardation through tests and treatment beginning at or shortly after birth (phenylketonuria and some other conditions in which metabolic disorder can produce retardation) and through immunization (measles).

It is imperative that many more scientists engage in studies in areas (such as biochemistry, physiology, learning) related to or bearing on the field of mental retardation, and that these scientists multiply their own efforts through greatly expanded training activities for scientific researchers and supporting research personnel.

Better and wider use of modern technology (such as automation) will make possible the development of new or more widely applicable techniques for retardation study, treatment, and prevention. For example, automated procedures would enable the genetic study of larger numbers of people and the detection of subtle differences between normal individuals and those whose genetic make-up is such that they are "carriers" of genes associated with retardation. Progress in this area will in turn make genetic counseling more accurate.

A special effort should be made in the study of prenatal life from its cytogenetic and physiological aspects, utilizing all appropriate clinical experience as well as the resource afforded through the National Institutes of Health's primate research centers. Increased knowledge in this area will make prenatal diagnosis and, ultimately, prenatal therapy possible.

Research on factors leading to a higher incidence of mental retardation in low income areas must be expanded and special methods developed for reaching such "high risk" groups through intensive family counseling and planning services.

We also believe it a matter of national urgency that all known successful research findings and program experience applicable in the detection, treatment, and prevention of mental retardation be put to work as widely as possible. Much that is already known is not applied, or is too little utilized.

At the same time, we must end the isolation of the United States from the world field of mental retardation study and action. Our experience and know-how are desperately needed in many parts of the world. Equally great is our need to learn from nations that have built programs for the retarded that are in advance of our own.

Ways of facilitating information and experience exchange among U.S. and foreign researchers and programmers in mental retardation need to be developed. Early exploration should be made, for example, of an international mental retardation information and experience exchange via the scientific, medical, and educational communications satellite channels now on the drawing board. Finally, the federal government, as part of the national commitment to combat mental retardation, should help support basic retardation research and program experimentation in other countries and aid U.S. planners and programmers to study foreign mental retardation programs and problems.

7. Immediate, major attention should be given to early identification and treatment of the mentally retarded.

The majority of children identified as mentally retarded are not discovered until they reach school age.