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Policies for the Future Prevention of Handicaps in Children
Author(s) -
Aldrich Robert A.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
pediatrics international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.49
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1442-200X
pISSN - 1328-8067
DOI - 10.1111/j.1442-200x.1980.tb00489.x
Subject(s) - medicine , developed country , life span , variety (cybernetics) , human development (humanity) , quality of life (healthcare) , quality (philosophy) , developing country , developmental psychology , economic growth , gerontology , psychology , environmental health , nursing , population , philosophy , epistemology , artificial intelligence , computer science , economics
Handicaps to children are sufficiently numerous and of such variety that a significant proportion of children and youth in industrialized countries are unable to reach their natural potential and productivity. In times of low birth rates in industrialized countries this can become a limitation in reaching national goals. From a purely humanitarian standpoint children with handicaps could have better quality lives if their handicaps could be prevented. This paper is an effort to put forth a rationale for the prevention of furture handicaps to children and suggest some of the policies that lead in that direction. Pediatricians worldwide have distinguished themselves for more than one hundred years by their effective efforts to understand and to interpret the phenomenon of human growth and development. This focus upon both physical growth and development and social‐behavioral development has discovered much of the evidence for the continuity of the human life span from conception to the elder years, continuity of processes that emerge at one stage in life and have maximum impact at still another. One can no longer seclude a single stage such as infancy from a much later stage such as the young adult because many manifestations observed in infancy may have their major effects in the young adult. In truth, we pediatricians are increasingly being drawn toward interest in all aspects of the life span simply because of their interrelatedness and the practical applicability of pediatric policies and principles to the stages of life that follow childhood and youth.