Stories told by 14 educable mentally retarded and 14 normal adolescents were analyzed for length, sentence length, type-token ratio, usage of parts of speech, and grammatical correctness. The normal group used longer sentences and a greater variety of words. This is in contrast to the differences observed with written compositions. The results are interpreted as emphasizing the importance of teaching communications skills directly.
References
1.
BlountW. R.A comment on language, socialization, acceptance, and the retarded. Mental Retardation, 1969, 7, 33–35.
2.
CartwrightG. P.Written language abilities of educable mentally retarded and normal children. Amer. J. ment. Defic., 1968, 72, 499–505.
3.
FriesC. C.The structure of English. New York: Harcourt, 1952.
4.
HerdanG.Type-token mathematics. The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton, 1960.
5.
LelandH.The relationship between “intelligence” and mental retardation. Amer. J. ment. Defic., 1969, 73, 533–535.
6.
StucklessE. R.MarksC. H.Assessment of the written language of deaf students. U.S.O.E. Cooperative Research Project 2544, Univer. of Pittsburgh, 1966.
