ABSTRACT
In referential communication, the speaker must communicate to the listener about how a referent is different from other stimuli (i.e., employ the "difference rule"--Whitehurst & Sonnenschein, 1985). In Experiment 1 we compared use of the difference rule by children with and without mental retardation matched for Quick Test MA. Participants with mental retardation were less likely to employ the difference rule. Experiment 2 demonstrated that perceptual feedback training, which teaches use of the difference rule, enhances referential communication of children with mental retardation.
Subject(s)
Communication , Intellectual Disability/rehabilitation , Child , Child, Preschool , Education , Feedback , Female , Humans , Intellectual Disability/complications , Intellectual Disability/diagnosis , Interpersonal Relations , Male , Research DesignABSTRACT
An habituation-dishabituation procedure was used to study perception of changes in figure orientation by nonambulatory children with profound mental retardation. On each of 3 days, 16 participants were given familiarization trials with either a vertical or an horizontal pattern, followed by test trials with the familiarized stimulus and one of three novel stimuli--a 90 degree or 45 degree rotation of the pattern, or a rearrangement of the pattern elements into a square. Visual fixation times decreased over familiarization trials. Fixation times on test trials were longer for novel than for familiar stimuli, indicating that these children discriminated changes in form and orientation.
Subject(s)
Disabled Persons/psychology , Discrimination Learning , Form Perception , Intellectual Disability/psychology , Orientation , Pattern Recognition, Visual , Adolescent , Arousal , Attention , Child , Child, Preschool , Female , Habituation, Psychophysiologic , Humans , MaleABSTRACT
Twenty-two moderately and severely mentally retarded adolescents and 22 nonretarded children participated in an experiment designed to examine processes contributing to matching-to-sample deficits of low mental age (MA) retarded persons. One-half of the subjects rehearsed color, form, and size cues during delay intervals. Nonretarded subjects performed better than did retarded subjects on immediate and delayed retention tests. There was no difference in rate of forgetting, and rehearsal improved delayed test performance equally for both groups. Although immediate test results indicated that low-MA persons are capable of multiple-looking, these results also suggest that retarded persons attend to fewer dimensions than do nonretarded children.
Subject(s)
Attention , Discrimination Learning , Form Perception , Intellectual Disability/psychology , Memory, Short-Term , Pattern Recognition, Visual , Adolescent , Education of Intellectually Disabled , Humans , Retention, PsychologyABSTRACT
Two experiments examined the reinforcing value of response contingent sensory events consisting of combinations of visual, auditory, and vibratory stimulation. Ten nonambulatory, profoundly mentally retarded individuals participated in these studies. Four different stimulus combinations were required to achieve operant conditioning of head turning responses in 6 participants. These sensory reinforcers included 5-s simultaneous presentations of picture, music, and vibration (N = 2), picture and music (N = 2), picture and vibration (N = 1), and picture alone (N = 1). These results indicate that systematically varying a multimodal sensory event is a fruitful procedure for identifying positive reinforcers for nonambulatory, profoundly mentally retarded persons.
Subject(s)
Conditioning, Operant , Intellectual Disability/rehabilitation , Reinforcement, Psychology , Sensation , Adolescent , Adult , Child , Female , Humans , Male , Music , Physical Stimulation , Reinforcement Schedule , VibrationABSTRACT
Generalization of habituation along a form dimension was investigated with nonambulatory, profoundly mentally retarded children. On each of 4 testing days, 12 participants (mean CA = 7.83 years, median MA = 3.50 months) were given habituation trials with either a circle or an ellipse, followed by test trials involving presentations of the habituating stimulus and three test stimuli that differed in shape from the habituating stimulus. Fixation times decreased over habituation trials and increased during test trials. No differences in fixation times to test stimuli were found in the group data, and analyses of individual subject data indicated that only 2 children showed generalization gradients.
Subject(s)
Generalization, Psychological , Habituation, Psychophysiologic , Intellectual Disability/psychology , Adolescent , Age Factors , Child , Child, Preschool , Female , Fixation, Ocular , Form Perception , Humans , Intelligence , Male , Time FactorsABSTRACT
A set of 45 mental scale items from the Bayley Scales of Infant Development was administered by two testers to 33 nonambulatory, profoundly mentally retarded subjects. Interobserver agreement was high for overall scores and for 42 of 45 individual items. Total number of items passed was significantly correlated with activity level. Division of these items into a stimulus set and a response set provided a qualitative description of performance that supported previous research indicating that these individuals have deficits in exploratory motivation and perceptual curiosity. Bayley raw scores predicted success in conditioning programs, suggesting that this test is useful for educational programming.
Subject(s)
Intellectual Disability/diagnosis , Intelligence Tests , Adolescent , Adult , Child , Child, Preschool , Conditioning, Psychological , Exploratory Behavior , Female , Humans , Male , Motivation , Motor ActivityABSTRACT
Four experiments examined the control of observing responses by information feedback during visual discrimination learning. Second-grade children participated in Experiment 1; kindergarten, second-, and fifth-grade children were subjects in Experiments 2 and 3, and grade 5 and adult subjects were tested in Experiment 4. In order to view the stimuli, subjects in Experiments 1, 2, and 3 activated lights in viewing boxes; in Experiment 4, stimulus fixations were measured using a corneal reflection technique. Fifth graders and adults observed the discriminative stimuli for longer times on trials following negative feedback than on trials following positive feedback; in contrast, kindergartener's observing was not affected by type of feedback. Second graders showed smaller and less reliable reactions to type of feedback than did older subjects. These results support the view that visual observing is controlled by cognitive processes associated with hypothesis testing.
