The Journal of Special Education

A revolution in providing residential alternatives for mentally retarded (MR) individuals has made in vivo training a part of the deinstitutionalization process. The literature indicates that institutional teaching programs may not be as effective as in vivo community training. MR adults can acquire a variety of community survival skills — the skills curriculum developers must address when they devise new and innovative community integration experiences. This paper reviews the training procedures and results of studies in 10 community survival skills: travel, money management, meal preparation, clothing and personal care, telephone use, housekeeping, self-medication, leisure, social skills, and conversation. Several suggestions are made for future research into training MR citizens for community living.

Teaching the mentally retarded skills that build and maintain physical fitness is important for a number of reasons. Until recently, however, this area has been overlooked by most educators and community recreation specialists. Little empirical evidence exists indicating the activities and instructional techniques best suited for this population. There are also few data showing the general level of fitness of mentally retarded persons, improvement in the level of fitness, or the long-term effects of participation in fitness programs. A literature review revealed several factors that should affect future research and programming in fitness through training programs for the mentally retarded. Two of the most significant factors are weaknesses in past studies and the current emphasis on integration of the retarded into regular, community-based programs.

The author discusses a linguistic-functions approach to language intervention. Linguistic functions refer to the general social uses of language, such as requesting objects and activities, initiating social interactions, expressing personal feelings, describing aspects of the world, requesting information, and pretending. Normal infants acquire linguistic functions naturally; nonverbal mentally handicapped children acquire linguistics functions when they are taught sign language. From a linguistic-functions viewpoint, the spontaneous use of linguistic functions is the most appropriate goal of language instruction for nonverbal mentally handicapped children. The concept of a linguistic function is presented, and the evidence for the use of linguistic functions by normal infants and nonverbal children who are taught sign language is reviewed. The sequencing of linguistic functions for instruction is then discussed in detail. It is suggested that the teachable parts of the functions be sequenced in approximately the same order that they appear in the speech of normal infants, from the Expression of Desires, to Reference and Person Concepts, to Inquiry Skills, to Abstraction.

All preschool children of the same age-group in a small town (N = 180) were tested 6 months before kindergarten entry (M age = 4 years — 9 months) with the Holbrook Screening Battery (HSB). The HSB correctly identified 92% of children who scored as both good and poor readers 4 years later on the Stanford Achievement Test (Total Reading score.) A shorter battery (5 HSB subtests) was found to predict reading as well as did the total HSB battery of 15 subtests. In factor analysis, the 5 variables most effective in predicting reading loaded on a verbal or a visual-verbal factor (WPPSI Information, Sentences, Letters, Counting and Draw-a-person; R = .74). Conclusions were that the prediction of later good and poor reading is no less accurate at age 4 than it is at 5 or 6 years, and that language and word-finding tasks are effective predictors. The benefits of predictive testing before kindergarten entry, and its role in reducing reading disability, are discussed.

Inclinations of nonhandicapped children to help their handicapped peers are examined. Ninety-eight boys and girls in either kindergarten, first, second, or third grade viewed videotapes of pairs of children (Down's syndrome/orthopedically handicapped, orthopedically handicapped/nonhandicapped, nonhandicapped/Down's syndrome) in need of help with completing a puzzle. Subjects were asked which child they would help first and why, and how much help they would give each child. Results indicated that, overall, the orthopedically handicapped children were selected first more often than either the Down's-syndrome or the nonhandicapped children. The reasons given by the younger and older subjects for their choices were different. Implications of prosocial behaviors in an integrated setting are discussed.

The differential outcomes produced by mass-media and group instruction campaigns on immediate and long-term changes in parent attitudes and knowledge regarding early identification were examined. During Phase I, for 3 months, parents in 1 community were exposed to Child Check through mass-media instruction, and in the other community, through group instruction. During Phase II, the campaigns in each community were reversed. A third community received no exposure. Pre- and post-Phase I and post-Phase II surveys were conducted. Group instruction increased parent knowledge of legal rights and services, ensured parents use of the Child Check Diary, and temporarily changed parent attitudes. Mass media did not have an effect on either parent attitudes and knowledge or their use of the Diary.

There has been a steady increase in the design and implementation of training programs that teach behavior-modification techniques to parents. This paper addresses the broad issue of ethical problems in behavior modification and specific problems in the area of parent training programs. The author has examined both parent training programs conducted by professionals and implemented by parents, and books on behavior modification written for parents to implement with their children. Four areas of concern are discussed. First, what constitutes an appropriate target for intervention and are there potential conflicts between parents' and children's rights? Many of the programs analyzed offered parents little guidance in selecting significant goals, and most selected goals focused on eliminating undesirable behaviors. Second, problems related to the nature of intervention are discussed — problems associated with both positive contingencies (how are reinforcers chosen and evaluated?) and with the sanctioned use of punishment. The third issue is that of conflicts between experimentation and therapeutic intervention. Conflicts between parents and researchers concerning the use of techniques (such as reversals, returning to baseline, and the triggering of undesirable behaviors) are analyzed in terms of ethical and methodological ramifications. A final issue concerns the level of training provided to parents who are instructed to design and implement behavior-modification programs with their children. How such training is given and evaluated is raised as an ethical concern. The paper concludes with a plea for consideration of ethical issues and places this discussion within a broader context of professional training.

Educator accountability has been a major theme in special education for the past decade. While it is primarily important that an educator evaluate and substantiate the progress of a student over a school year, it is also important that progress be attributable to specific educational procedures. The ability of the educator to make valid statement regarding the efficacy of educational procedures in developing specific skills is central to a diagnostic-prescriptive orientation. The present paper presents a rationale for use of the changing-criterion design in special education. This single-subject research strategy is designed to establish valid causal statements regarding the association between educational treatments and behavior change. A changing-criterion design by a special education teacher in the public schools is presented in the paper; it is discussed with particular reference to its applications in special education settings.

This paper reviews studies on oligophrenia (mental retardation) in the Soviet Union published between 1970 and 1980 in Defectologia (Defectology) and Voprosy Psikhologii (Problems of Psychology). The major findings reveal that there are more males than females among the oligophrenic and seriously emotionally disturbed, that there is a higher percentage of oligophrenic mothers than fathers of children who are oligophrenic, and that there is an associative clustering defect among oligophrenics. The findings are of interest, since children in the Soviet Union live in an environment which is culturally, linguistically, and socially different from that in the United States.