Retarded Isn’t Stupid Mom While reading the book “Retarded Isn’t Stupid Mom,” it was easy to find many different ideas we talked about in class. I was able to relate many of the traits of the child with a mental disability, Nicole, to the traits we discussed in class, as well as relate the traits of the parents to class discussion. Nicole’s story takes place in the early 1950’s when people used the terms mentally retarded, as well as educable mentally retarded and trainable mentally retarded. This book outlines both the struggles and good times experienced my Nicole and her family throughout most of her life. Nicole was born in the 1950’s and she was born prematurely. Nicole weighed a little over four pounds, and from then on she was developing…show more content… He tells her with some treatment he may be able to help Nicole reach proper height and weight by adulthood, and Sandy asks if that will fix the mental retardation. Sandy didn’t think this could happen to her, and at first she didn’t know how she could get through it. When Nicole was young she was even ashamed of Nicole’s condition to some extent, and when her neighbor who also had a child with mental retardation would talk to her, she would say she heard the phone ring and would try to get out of the conversation. As Nicole gets older, she has many more noticeable traits of children with her condition. Nicole struggled in school with learning her numbers and letters, but she loved art and it was something she was good at, but she also struggled socially. Nicole had trouble understanding what was appropriate to say and what wasn’t. When Nicole was around the age of seven she went over to a friend’s house, and her friend’s mom was pregnant. The first thing out of Nicole’s mouth was how the baby comes out, and she even asked if she could see her bottom. Nicole didn’t understand that this was inappropriate, and this is a typical quality in children with mental