Community-based, Day Treatment for Mentally Retarded Adults.

The article deals with community-based day treatment for mentally retarded adults. The community is where social workers began and where they continue to be competent and versatile. Similarly, the need for cost-efficient, cost-effective service has slowly influenced the movement of care and training from medical institutions to community-based facilities. Licensed, certified social workers embrace an imperative to be knowledgeable, sensitive, and educated to the needs of the population served. Quality of service and primacy of client interests are regarded as fundamental tenets of practice. Medicaid's current service guidelines underscore these professional principles of practice for settings designed to accommodate people who are developmentally disabled/mentally retarded. The age, length of institutionalization or family enmeshment, language, culture and degree of physical, mental, or emotional handicap determines the level of treatment. Initially, one should not be discouraged by apparent intellectual constraints. Standard language and intellectual functioning tests do not address historical paucity of the consumers' everyday experiences. Initial testing and a retesting program results in encouraging profiles of growth as exposure to life events and their symbolic vocabulary increases.