One CD-ROM disc in pocket.

Pity, disgust, fear, cure, and prevention--all are words that Americans have used to make sense of what today we call intellectual disability. Inventing the Feeble Mind explores the history of this disability from its several identifications over the past 200 years: idiocy, imbecility, feeblemindedness, mental defect, mental deficiency, mental retardation, and most recently intellectual disability. Using institutional records, private correspondence, personal memories, and rare photographs, James Trent argues that the economic vulnerability of intellectually disabled people (and often their families), more than the claims made for their intellectual and social limitations, has shaped meaning, services, and policies in United States history.

A follow-up study to Christmas in purgatory by Burton Blatt and Fred Kaplan.

The book deals with the concept of quality of life for persons with mental retardation and developmental disabilities. Part I, "Quality of Life: Personal Perspectives," contains "A Dream for Myself" (Connie Martinez); "Reflections on My Quality of Life: Then and Now" (Nancy Ward); "Quality of Life versus Quality of Life Judgments: A Parent's Perspective" (Diane Crutcher); "My Sister Angie: A Sibling's Perspective" (Jeff Jacoby); "Quality of Life and the Individual's Perspective" (Steven Taylor and Robert Bogdan); and "Thinking about and Discussing Quality of Life" (David Goode). Part II deals with service delivery issues and contains: "Home Is the Place: Quality of Life for Young Children with Developmental Disabilities" (David Coulter); "Quality of Life from Childhood to Adulthood" (Jack Stark and Tammi Goldsbury); "Persons in Transition" (Orv Karan and others); "Quality of Life: Issues in Community Integration" (Kenneth Keith); "Quality of Work Life" (William Kiernan and Kari Knutson); "Growing Old with Dignity: On Quality of Life for Older Persons with a Lifelong Disability" (Matthew Janicki); and "Quality of Life and Lifestyle Outcomes: A Challenge for Residential Programs" (G. Thomas Bellamy and others). Part III contains four papers that discuss assessment and measurement issues, including: "Attempts to Conceptualize and Measure Quality of Life" (Robert Schalock); "Quality of Life from a Longitudinal Research Perspective" (Robert Edgerton); "Methodological Issues in Measuring the Quality of Life of Individuals with Mental Retardation" (Laird Heal and Carol Sigelman); and "Quality of Life of Persons with Severe or Profound Mental Retardation." Part IV, which discusses the future of quality of life as a concept and a principle, comprises five papers, including: "Quality of Life and Public Philosophy" (H. Turnbull III and Gary Brunk); "A Lawyer's Perspective on Quality of Life" (Ruth Luckasson); "Quality Assurance: Challenges in a Decentralized System" (Valerie Bradley); "Measuring Quality of Life: Where Have We Been, Where Are We Going?" (James Conroy and Celia Feinstein), and "Where Do We Go from Here?" (Robert Schalock). (JDD)