The development of speech act comprehension in mentally retarded individuals and nonretarded children

Understanding the speech act(s) a sentence conveys requires that a listener follow conversational rules and use clues provided by the sentence and the context in which it is spoken. To trace the development of speech act comprehension in mentally retarded and nonretarded school age children, we examined their responses to sentences such as Would you open the telephone book? and Could you roll the shoebox? These sentences can be intended as questions or as directives. Nonretarded adults follow the "answer obviousness" rule and interpret a sentence of this type as a question if the answer to the question is nonobvious to the speaker, but as a directive if the question has an obvious answer. We manipulated answer obviousness by varying both the context and linguistic properties of the interrogative. Retarded and nonretarded individuals at the nonverbal MAs of 5, 7, and 9 years were studied. Retarded and nonretarded individuals at all MAs followed the answer obviousness rule and used the contextual and linguistic clues available. There were only minor differences between MA-matched retarded and nonretarded subjects despite the fact that the retarded subjects had serious deficits in receptive linguistic competence. The implications for understanding the development of comprehension in retarded persons and for understanding the relations among language, cognition, and communication in general are considered.     

Measurement properties of the MacArthur communicative development inventories at ages one and two years

In a prospective study of child development in relation to early-life otitis media, we administered the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) to a large (N = 2,156), sociodemographically diverse sample of 1- and 2-year-old children. As a prerequisite for interpreting the CDI scores, we studied selected measurement properties of the inventories. Scores on the CDI/Words and Gestures (CDI-WG), designed for children 8 to 16 months old, and on the CDI/Words and Sentences (CDI-WS), designed for children 16 to 30 months old, increased significantly with months of age. On several scales of both CDI-WG and CDI-WS, standard deviations approximated or exceeded mean values, reflecting wide variability in results. Statistically significant differences in mean scores were found according to race, maternal education, and health insurance status as an indirect measure of income, but the directionality of differences was not consistent across inventories or across scales of the CDI-WS. Correlations between CDI-WG and CDI-WS ranged from .18 to .39. Our findings suggest that the CDI reflects the progress of language development within the age range 10 to 27 months. However, researchers and clinicians should exercise caution in using results of the CDI to identify individual children at risk for language deficits, to compare groups of children with different sociodemographic profiles, or to evaluate the effects of interventions.     

The effects of teacher-delivered social reinforcement on the task persistent behavior of educable mentally retarded children

The effects of teacher-delivered social reinforcers on the task persistent behavior of children enrolled in an intermediate class for the educable mentally retarded were studied. These children were grouped with a regular fourth grade class during a social studies period in which the study was conducted. The special education children were randomly divided into two groups, with seven children in each group. Using a reversal design, social reinforcers were delivered contingent upon the task persistent behavior of the seven target children. The seven youngsters in the control, or nonreinforcement, group were essentially ignored as they engaged in appropriate task-related behaviors. The results clearly show that increases in the level of task persistent behavior and the administration of social reinforcement were functionally related. The level of task persistent behavior emitted by the control children was not affected by reinforcement delivered to their peers.     

Neglected and abused children of mentally retarded parents

Sixty-four neglected and abused children with a mentally retarded parent seen from one to seven years earlier, were followed to determine placement outcomes. At the time of follow-up, 11 of 64 children remained with their low functioning parents. Six children had been relinquished voluntarily for adoption and courts had terminated parental rights for 34, resulting in a total of 40 who had been adopted. Nine children were in foster care at the time of the study; two had been awarded to their nonretarded parent following divorce; and two had died. All families had received public financial assistance and medical care and used an average of 10 other services per family. Because of their cognitive limitations, most of these retarded parents were unable to benefit sufficiently from community services to enable them to care for their children. These findings point up the need for a mechanism whereby the retarded adult's right to parent and the child's right to nurturance and protection may both be preserved. Until this dilemma can be resolved, decisions to terminate parental rights in such cases should be made more quickly.     

Sexual health and behavior of mentally retarded pupils in Japan

Sex education has always been a controversial topic. Although sex education at schools has improved in general, sex education for mentally retarded pupils still encounters prejudice and conservatism as a result of several misconceptions about the subject. This research was performed in the form of a survey of opinions about sex education in special classes in ordinary public schools for mentally retarded pupils in Tokyo, Japan. Information was collected through written questionnaires distributed to teachers and parents of pupils of both sexes, whose age range was between 7 and 16 years. This work aims to stimulate an open and broad discussion, as well as to help teachers and parents to improve their knowledge about the subject. In addition, it provides data to outline a more specific program in sex education for mentally retarded pupils.