Over recent years the policy of isolating and institutionalizing mentally handicapped people has gradually been dismantled and a major shift to community care has taken place. But integration within the general community and access to special services has greatly increased the number of people with a need to know about mental handicap. Each profession or discipline has its own terminology; nowadays one must be conversant with all of them. In this comprehensive dictionary Mary Lindsey has brought together terms and concepts from a wide variety of fields.