Results of the Collaborative Perinatal Project report disclose the risk factors for mental retardation found in children examined from the prenatal period to age seven. Both biological and social risk factors are analyzed for both severe and mild cognitive deficits. The authors of this volume investigated the etiologies of the neurological subgroups of the retarded and reveal, through comparisons with non-retarded groups, important population factors related to normal cognitive development.

Sarah H. Broman, Paul L. Nichols, Peter Shaughnessy, Wallace Kennedy

Contents: Introduction. Methods. Characteristics of the Mentally retarded Children. Prenatal and Obstetric Factors. The Neonatal Period. Infancy. The Preschool Period. The School-Age Period. Subgroups of the Mentally Retarded. Familial Patterns of Mental Retardation. Summary and Conclusions. Variables Associated with Retardation. Correlations Among Independent Variables. Prenatal Drug Exposure. Distributions and Univartiate Statistics for Discriminating Characteristics of the Mildly Retarded Subgroups.