Robert B. Kugel

An analysis of reasons for institutionalizing children with mongolism

A sample of 77 institutionalized children with mongolism and their families was studied to ascertain what factors were involved in the decision to place the child in an institution supposedly for medical care or educational training. Two children had medical reasons for hospitalization; 12 children were from communities where facilities for educational training were inadequate to meet their needs; the remaining 63 had been placed for various social reasons. In analyzing these social reasons, it became clear that the majority of parents acted because they were told, usually by a physician, that it would be undesirable to keep the child at home for reasons whose validity we doubt. Frequently the parents did not understand the problem of the childs capabilities, disorder, or the natural history of mongolism. We doubt that the majority of these children would need to have been institutionalized had more adequate counseling services been available to them when the problem first arose and during the critical early years when parents need it most.