MENTALLY-RETARDED PERSONS AS PARENTS - PREVALENCE AND THE SITUATION OF THEIR CHILDREN

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.