My Name Isn't Slow: Youth with Mental Retardation

When Mr. Brown peers through the glass window at his new daughter, she looks impossibly frail in the incubator. The doctors said she has Down syndrome; she will have mental retardation. But what will that mean for Mr. Brown's daughter? What will she be able to do? Will she ever have talents like his other children? Will she feel joy from her accomplishments-or only pain from her limitations?

Mental retardation is one of the most stigmatized disabilities in our society. People living with men...