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This study investigates some of the variations in factors underlying the identification of children as mental defectives and the decision to commit them to an institution. The fieldwork was carried out at the State Training School for Mental Defectives in St. Louis, Missouri. The data consist of material abstracted from case records of eighty-seven recent admissions to the institution and of interviews with parents of twenty of these children. [...]

The effectiveness of the Touch Math method of instruction was examined in count-all addition procedures with Down Syndrome children. Four children with Down Syndrome were selected for a multiple probe design study. The participants, two male and two female, are students at a school for intellectually handicapped children and adolescents. They were ascertained to have the minimum required skills in rote counting, one-to-one correspondence, and recognition and identification of numbers. In a multiple pretest procedure with 15 simple addition problems, they demonstrated ineffective addition strategies such as guessing and averaged less than 35% correct. / The Touch Math program was then implemented during the regularly scheduled math period four days a week for 40 minutes each day. Students progressed through an incrementally more difficult series of simple addition worksheets. During each session the student received training on the problems and then was administered the worksheet. / Results indicate that the Touch Math method has been successful for the teaching of simple addition with these students. Scores on the worksheets progressed from 0% to 100% correct and probe results improved from less than 35% correct to greater than 86% correct following completion of the program. Subjects completed the program in 5 to 16 days.

Children with an intellectual disability may significantly affect families in ways that have implications for other sibling's adjustment. In this thesis, 40 siblings of intellectually disabled children are compared to 40 siblings of healthy children. The goal is to determine (i) if a child with an intellectual disability affects the other siblings in the family, and (ii) if they are functions of siblings' age, grade, gender, ordinal position, age gap with the disabled child, sibling number, disabled child's severity of impairment, parental educational background, etc. / The findings did not confirm that siblings of children with an intellectual disability have poorer adjustment than that of healthy children. However, the older sisters and older siblings of children with intellectual disability were found to have poorer adjustment in some of the area. Age gap and father's educational background is positively correlated to the adjustment of siblings of children with an intellectual disability. Then and other findings are discussed in the thesis.

Adaptive coping behaviors of children with a mild to moderate intellectual disability educated in regular and special classrooms were examined using a comparative design incorporating both quantitative and qualitative analyses. Children's coping behaviors were examined using the Coping Inventory (Zeitlin, 1985) and their behavior was assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991). Children with an intellectual disability integrated in regular classrooms were found not to exhibit more adaptive coping behaviors than their counterparts in special classrooms. Descriptive analyses delineated several factors within both environments that influence children's coping efforts such as dependency on adults, external control, the quality of instruction, the social organization of the classroom, and the lack of direct instruction in developing children's adaptive coping efforts. Recommendations from the current study focus on the need for children with an intellectual disability to be provided with direct instruction of adaptive coping behaviors and facilitated opportunities to learn through trial and error in order to become more autonomous copers.

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The purpose of this study was to evaluate the Metropolitan Achievement Test, Primary I Battery (MAT-PI) for its early predictive validity in the later identification of mildly mentally handicapped students as well as its predictive validity in Identifying children who will be referred for an individualized psycho-educational assessment In the course of their elementary school career. All selected subjects (N=225) were students In the Gary Community School Corporation in Gary, Indiana, who had taken the MAT-PI during April of first grade, between the years 1981-83. Seventy-five subjects were randomly chosen from three categories; students who were subsequently designated as mildly mentally handicapped (MIMH, N= 429), students who were subsequently referred and evaluated as part of psycho-educational evaluation and who were not classified as mildly mentally handicapped (Referral Group, 1Y 974) and students who were not subsequently referred or evaluated as part of a psycho-educational evaluation nor classified under any special education classification (Normal, & -6,336). An additional 27 students from each group (MIMH, Referral and Normal) were retained to perform a cross validation. Discriminant Analysis was used with the selected sample (N=225) to predict group membership (MIMH, Referral and Normal) using standard scores from four subtests (Word Knowledge, Word Analysis, Reading and Math) of the MAT-PI as independent variables. A step-wise discriminant procedure was utilized with a minimum significance level of A <.05 for the two possible discriminant functions. A series of one-way analyses of variance examined the mean differences between the three groups (MIMH, Referral and Normal). A post-hoc analysis of mean differences between groups was done using the Scheffe test of significance (R <.05).Findings1. The results of the analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA's) indicated significant (p. <.01) mean differences between the three groups (MIMH, Referral and Normal) on each of the four predictor variables (MAT-PI subtests: Word Knowledge, Word Analysis, Reading and Math).2. The results of the discriminant analysis for both a three-group (MIMH, Referral and Normal) and a two-group (Referred and NonReferred) classification system, produced statistically significant (p <_.01) discriminant functions.3. The Word Knowledge, Word Analysis and Math subtests of the MAT-PI were the best predictors of group membership in both the three-group and the two-group classification systems.Conclusions1. The null hypothesis that the MAT-PI will not significantly discriminate students who will be identified as in need of special education services for the mildly mentally handicapped was rejected. 2. The null hypothesis that the MAT-PI will not significantly discriminate students who will subsequently be referred for a psycho-educatioanl evaluation was rejected.3. A comparison of these results with related studies substantiates that the MAT-PI has comparable predictive ability for early identification of "high risk" children to individually administered preschool screening tests, the use of biographical data, parent questionnaires or teacher ratings.4. The major problem with the MAT-PI, as an economical screening instrument, is its tendency to over-predict (false positives).