Community involvement and socialization among individuals with mental retardation.

Mental retardation, a condition characterized by significantly lower than average intellectual ability and adaptive behavior deficits, currently affects between 2% and 3% of the population. Individuals with mental retardation experience many difficulties throughout their lives, with one such difficulty being that they have few opportunities for community involvement and often have few social relationships. To determine if increased community involvement and increased socialization are among the most common desires expressed by individuals with mental retardation, we conducted a study examining pre-existing data of 1348 individuals. The study focused on specific desires expressed by individuals with mental retardation--including, but not limited to, increased community involvement and increased socialization. Although these individuals expressed a wide variety of desires, they expressed a desire for increased community involvement most frequently. Individuals also frequently expressed a desire for increased socialization, change of residence, work-related changes, increased personal belongings, and increased personal activities. We discuss the importance of community involvement and socialization, the link between the two, interactions that could potentially exist among other expressed desires, and ways of increasing community involvement while addressing other desires that individuals with mental retardation expressed.