What was going on when I was born?

As one of the country's fastest-growing high-technology companies, the Data Switch Corporation is the kind of centerpiece for economic development that most small cities long to have. So the news that it is leaving Norwalk has not been easy to swallow. ''It's like a child growing up and moving out,'' Mayor William A. Collins said. ''Sadly, there is no way we could hold on to a company expanding that fast.''

A picture caption in Metropolitan Report April 23 with an article about New Yorkers at the Sackler School of Medicine in Tel Aviv misidentified the two students shown. They were Gay Lieberman and David Rosenberg.

THE professional organization of English teachers is offering its members modest grants to do their own research on classroom effectiveness instead of waiting for findings by experts in university ivory towers. The Research Foundation of the National Council of Teachers of English (N.C.T.E.) has responded to the current clamor for better schools by urging classroom teachers to join the reform movement as classroom- based researchers. Grants of $200 to $2,000 are being offered for any on-the-job research that will improve the way both teachers and children function in the classroom. The foundation has an annual awards budget of about $30,000. Grants are not applicable to the purchase of equipment, convention travel or research that is part of graduate degree programs. They may, however, be used for clerical help, research assistance and reproduction of the findings. Successful research is made avail able to other teachers through the council's publications.

An article in Business Day on Friday about a lawsuit over Costa Rican debt incorrectly described the preparation of the decision in the case. It was by a three-judge panel, with no author identified.

Senator Gary Hart said today that Walter F. Mondale, as Vice President, was part of an Administration that was ''weak,'' ''inept,'' ''uncertain'' and marked by ''days of shame'' in Iran. ''Walter Mondale now promises an America that can and will stand up for its vital interests,'' the Colorado Senator told an ebullient crowd of hundreds of students at Texas A&M University here. ''But Carter-Mondale actually gave us an America held hostage to the ayatollahs of the world.'' ''In national security as in domestic policy,'' he said, ''we must not leave the American people with a bleak choice in 1984 between two failed pasts - that of Ronald Reagan and that of the Carter-Mondale Administration.''

The Government's principal gauge of the economy's prospects for coming months showed a steep 1.1 percent drop in March, the Commerce Department reported today. The decline in the gauge, the index of leading economic indicators, broke an 18-month string of monthly increases, the longest since World War II. It was the sort of shift that can portend the onset of a recession. However, both private and Administration analysts were quick to insist that the economy was merely moderating, not declining. They said the index simply confirmed what many other reports had suggested of late - that the economy was slowing to a pace that was normal after the initial rush of recovery from a recession.

It always came down to a single question: Should an abused child be taken away from its parents? City social workers, handling up to 30 cases of reported child abuse each month, will respond to an anticipated 35,000 reports of child abuse - a record number - in New York City's five boroughs this year. Overworked and awash in paper work, they are legally mandated both to protect children's lives and to try to keep families together. ''It's the most difficult job in the world to work with children being abused or neglected by their parents,'' said Bernard M. Shiffman, the executive director of the Community Council of Greater New York, a major voluntary welfare organization. ''Society and the court system say the family is sacred. But some families shouldn't be families. To be in the middle of that, you have to be Solomon.''

The Supreme Court, resolving an important issue in libel law, ruled today that the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press required appellate courts to conduct especially careful reviews of libel judgments. The 6-to-3 ruling was a significant victory for the press, which has come increasingly to rely on the willingness of appellate courts to overturn jury awards to plaintiffs who say they have been defamed. A recent study by the Libel Defense Resource Center found that libel plaintiffs won 83 percent of jury trials, but that news organizations won more than 70 percent of appeals. The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, upheld an appellate court's finding that there was inadequate evidence to justify a libel judgment against Consumers Union for an inaccurate review of a stereo speaker.

The Federal Government recommended today that greater emphasis be placed on nondrug treatments for high blood pressure, or hypertension, a disease that afflicts an estimated 60 million Americans and is a major risk factor in causing heart disease, stroke and kidney disease. The recommendations were prepared by a committee of experts convened by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and will be published in the May issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. The committee urged that nondrug therapies, such as diet, exercise and behavior modification, be ''pursued aggressively'' in treating the mildest cases of high blood pressure. It also suggested that the nondrug therapies be used as an adjunct in treating more severe cases of high blood pressure, in order to reduce the quantity of drugs required.

BUSINESS, like all human endeavors, has its share of irrationality and unintended destructiveness, and executives are guilty of their fair portion. Sometimes the irrationality of an executive's behavior is obvious; in other instances it can blend into the needs of an organization so well that it seems normal, or even positive. Irrationality at the executive level is now being looked at with increased intensity by an unusual breed of organizational consultants, many of whom are practicing psychoanalysts, and all of whom bring a clinical perspective to bear on organizational life. In an important sense, psychoanalysis and the corporation are working closely together for the first time. ''Executives sometimes get into trouble because of unconscious processes they neither see, understand or accept,'' Harry Levinson, a psychologist and business consultant, said in an interview.

The Company Earnings table and the Profits Scoreboard in Business Day on Friday misattributed first- quarter results for the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company. The results were listed as those of the Louisiana Land Offshore Exploration Company, which had not yet reported earnings. Results for both companies appear today in the Company Earnings table.

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 1984 The Economy The index of leading economic indicators fell a steep 1.1 percent in March, breaking an 18-month string of increases, the longest since World War II. Both private and Administration analysts said the economy was merely moderating, not declining. (Page D1.) Sales of new homes fell 4.9 percent in March from February. A large increase in home buying in the Northeast was more than offset by a sharp drop in the South. While the statistics showed that the industry was still strong, analysts said, they warned that rising interest rates were starting to hamper sales. (D25.)