Wt. Morch et al., MENTALLY-RETARDED PERSONS AS PARENTS - PREVALENCE AND THE SITUATION OF THEIR CHILDREN, Scandinavian journal of psychology, 38(4), 1997, pp. 343-348
This paper describes a research program on mentally retarded parents a
nd their children. For this nation-wide study, two structured question
naires were sent to all municipalities in Norway. Both questionnaires
were sent to public health nurses and were followed-up by a structured
telephone interview based on the questionnaires. The primary aim of t
he study was to survey the number of children born to mentally retarde
d parents. In addition, the children's needs and functional abilities
were to be assessed. Twenty-three mentally retarded persons had given
birth in the course of the past twelve months. A total of 126 children
with mentally retarded parents were identified, with an incidence of
27 children per year, and a prevalence of approximately 430 children u
nder 16 years of age in a population of 4 mill. people with a mean of
1.05 child per family. About 43% of the children of mentally retarded
parents appeared to have learning difficulties. Forty percent of the c
hildren suffered from failures of care. Between 25% and 68% of the chi
ldren with learning problems had poorly developed motor or language ab
ilities, sense modalities or psyche-social status.