Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities

This study surveyed the current status of art programs for retarded students in Indiana. It attempted to ascertain what classroom and art teachers of retarded students perceived to be their needs and problems in teaching art; what they value in art, what their objectives are, how they perceive the effect of art experiences on the behavior patterns of students and whether they feel prepared to teach art. Results indicate a need for more art training for classroom teachers and more knowledge of exceptional children for art teachers. However, the greatest need seems to be for more effective art programs designed specifically to meet the needs of exceptional students.

Research on visual perception training and language training suggests that selective measures of the two abilities are correlated with certain measures of reading and intelligence as well as visual perception and psycholinguistic abilities. This research investigated the effects of short term training programs in visual perception and language as they affected the visual perception, language, reading, and intellectual growth of young educable retarded children. The results indicated that young educable retardates did increase their visual perceptual abilities as a result of training in visual perception. The results of visual perception training had no significant effect upon growth in reading, language or intelligence. Language training was found to have no significant effect upon the variables studied.

This article is the second in a two-part series addressing two divergent educational models-the Diagnostic Prescriptive approach and the Behavioral Analysis approach. In the first article a comparison between the two models was made delineating similarities and differences across the two systems. A systematic integration of the pedagogically useful and helpful components from each approach into a singular comprehensive system was suggested. This article explicates the proposed educational approach, the Dialectic Teaching System.