Surveying unstructured time of adults with mental retardation living in two community settings: A search for normalization

Abstract

We designed a survey to assess whether 40 randomly selected individuals, equally divided across two settings (ICF/MR, minigroup home), differed in the amounts of time spent in the community, the people with whom unstructured activities were performed, and the choice maker of unstructured activities performed in the community or in homes. Time spent in unstructured activities was divided into four subsets: performed by self, with a peer, with staff, and with family. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated that individuals living in ICF/MR homes spent more time in the community with staff and made fewer choices of their unstructured activities than those living in minigroup homes. The analyses also indicated that for those retaining their own legal guardianship and living in ICF/MR homes continued to spend less time in activities they chose themselves. Of those variables reaching statistical significance, we questioned meaningful interpretations based on alternative interpretations of the raw data.     

IS RELIGION SUFFICIENT?

Is religion as we interpret, teach and practice it today capable of motivating life? Can religion qualify or control conduct and so shape character? In common with lower forms of life, we respond to the drive of hunger, to the desire for a mate, to the compulsion of fear and anger, to the urge to live and to defend our lives. These motivations are all very simple and direct. They spring from nature's demand that the race shall not end, but shall go on.

But is there another source of motivation‐‐call it a higher source if you wil‐‐which is able to condition these more primitive and subjective drives and cause men to act with reference to values outside themselves? Is there a source of constraint capable of making men serve ideal ends? And is religion this source, has it this power over men?