American journal of mental deficiency最新文献

A cross-cultural study was conducted to examine the extent to which certain environment-child development relationships can be generalized across two cultures. Participants were 103 trainable mentally retarded (TMR) children and their families in Japan and 88 TMR children and their families in the United States. The relation between cognitive stimulation and cultural opportunities at home and the children's social competence appeared to generalize across both cultures; however, the relation between affective and emotional aspects of parental behavior and the children's emotional adjustment appeared to be culture-specific. The cross-cultural difference in home environment was interpreted in terms of qualitative difference in parental values and expectations regarding the children's behavior.

Adults with and without Down syndrome performed a rapid unimanual finger-tapping task alone and while sound-shadowing high frequency words. For male subjects, the concurrent speech disrupted right-hand, but not left-hand performance. Females suffered finger-tapping decrements in both hands in the dual-task situation. These results provide no evidence for reverse (right hemisphere) lateralization of speech in individuals with Down syndrome.

The prevalence of multiple classes of stereotypic behavior was assessed in a large sample of nonambulatory profoundly mentally retarded people. Implications for programming efforts were discussed.

Mentally retarded and nonretarded adults' ability to recognize happiness, anger, sadness, and neutral affect from slides of young mentally retarded and nonretarded children was investigated. Recognizing affects in others is part of social awareness and necessary for successful social interactions. Retarded adults recognized fewer facial expressions than did nonretarded adults. Nonretarded children's expressions were identified more accurately than were those of retarded children. Happiness was recognized best. Retarded adults used the label "happy" most often, whereas nonretarded adults used the label "neutral" most often. Absence of affect (neutral) was recognized least well by retarded adults. Neutral and sad were confounded most often by nonretarded adults, whereas retarded adults confounded angry and sad most often.

Severely and profoundly mentally retarded children who engaged in stereotyped body rocking were presented with all possible pairs of three conditions and made a choice as to which they preferred: a rocking chair that rocked freely under the child's control (active stimulation), a rocking chair that provided the same stimulation but was under the experimenter's control (passive stimulation), and a rocking chair that had been immobilized (stationary). Children significantly chose the active stimulation condition over the passive and the passive over the stationary; however, the degree of the effect was associated with developmental level. Results were interpreted as showing that self-stimulation involves at least two independent processes, control and stimulation.

A cross-sectional survey of the prevalence of major mental retardation in 7- to 10-year-olds in the three Canadian Maritime provinces was carried out in 1980. Case ascertainment from multiple sources was considered to be virtually complete and resulted in a study group of 307 children, for whom 72% of the parents consented to personal data collection. The overall regional prevalence of major mental retardation was 3.65/1,000. Variation in county prevalence rate (based on parental residence at the time of birth) was associated, by regression analysis, with maternal age, areas of greater population concentrations, and number of physicians per capita. These associations were still present when children with Down syndrome were excluded from the analysis. Speech and behavior disorders and epilepsy were the major associated disabilities.

Gaze patterns of mentally retarded and nonretarded infants during play and instructional episodes with their mothers were compared at two developmental ages. Dyads were videotaped in their homes. Measures were derived from second-by-second coding of the videotapes. Results indicated that regardless of group, situation, or age, infants were overwhelmingly oriented toward the toys. Situational differences were more distinct in the nonretarded infants. Moreover, configurations of looking patterns were more consistent across ages in the nonretarded infants than in the retarded infants. These results were discussed in relation to implications for understanding characteristics of interactions between retarded infants and their caregivers.

Average caloric intake over 6 days, age, sex, height, weight, mid arm circumference, and triceps skinfold were determined for 31 females and 49 males ages 17 to 36 living in a residential care facility for mentally retarded persons. Ideal body weight, body mass index (W/H2), percentiles for arm muscle area, arm fat area, and triceps skinfold were determined to interpret the anthropometric measurements. Pearson r correlation coefficients were calculated to compare relative merits of ideal body weight, body mass index, percentile for arm muscle area, arm fat area, and triceps skinfold as an estimation of energy stores. Correlations suggest that body mass index is a more practical tool for estimation of energy stores.

A developmentally delayed, musically gifted child with no formal musical training was asked to repeat passages on the piano. Analysis of responses to melodies in each of the 24 major and minor keys indicated sensitivity to aspects of diatonic structure exhibited by mature listeners.

In a replication of a study by Warren and Mondy (1971), we observed the responses of staff in four institutional setting, three large community units, and five small community houses to the behavior of a total of 90 severely and profoundly mentally retarded adults. In the institutions and large community units, staff members showed problems in their responding similar to those reported by Warren and Mondy, in particular a lack of responding to appropriate behavior. Staff in the small community houses showed a greater level of encouragement of appropriate behavior and a discrimination in attending to appropriate as opposed to other behavior of 3:1. Whether this finding was due to the difference in size of the residential settings, their organization, or staff characteristics and training was discussed.