Ruth Sequeira

The Editor

The Navhind Times

Panaji Goa.

27th August 2009

Subject: Wrong terminology used in article.

Respected Sir,

I was ashamed to read an article on your paper with the headline reading ' School for Mentally Retarded Children Opened at Canacona' on page 7 of your issue dated 27th August 2009. While, it was admirable to cover the opening of the second school for these children, the terms used in the article were upsetting. The more polite term used to describe children with low IQ levels would be 'Mentally challenged' or 'Mentally handicapped' and not 'Retarded'. It is often the case that people use the term 'Mentally Retarded', it is possibly because they do not know the right terminology, but for a newspaper of such standards to use it throughout the article and even in its headlines is simply inexcusable.

As a media vehicle, you automatically act as an influencer to your readers, using terms like these only demeans these children. The word 'retarded' in comparison to the word 'challenged' formulates very different images in the minds of the reader; the former is negative and demeaning, while the latter gives hope. I have seen and worked with mentally challenged students, and you may agree with me that their work, is often far more sophisticated and intelligent than that of a 'normal' child of the same age. The point I'm trying to make is that these children are gifted in ways that we can hardly imagine, we have no right to deem them as 'retarded' when they have proved time and again that they are capable of doing as much as we can if not better.

It is my hope that your team of editors, will in future be more sensitive to such issues and avoid such errors.

Thanking you.

Yours sincerely

Ruth Sequeira

(Student of Sophia College)