It has been found that Duchenne muscular dystrophied children often obtain the performance IQ scores that are higher than their verbal IQ scores on the WISC. The present study was undertaken to investigate the effect of language development on this discrepancy between verbal and performance IQs. The WISC and the ITPA were administered to 24 boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. As a result of the WISC, the mean full IQ 74.3, verbal IQ 70.8 and performance IQ 83.3 were obtained. This mean verbal IQ was significantly lower than the performance. And 15 in the 24 boys studied had the discrepancy that performance IQ scores were higher of more than 6 IQ points over verbal IQ scores. Based on the discrepancy, we subdivided our cases into discrepancy group (D group, n =15) and non-discrepancy group (ND group, n=9). The results of the WISC and the ITPA of D group were compaired with those of ND group. Neither the WISC full IQ nor the ITPA global score differed significantly. In analysing the WISC and the ITPA subtest scores, D group showed the lower mean scores than ND group on all the subtests which asked to response by verbal expression and showed the higher mean scores than ND group on all the subtests which asked to response by non-verbal expression. From these findings, we hypothesized that the discrepancy resulted from verbal expression. And further we carried out the following test to verify our hypothesis. We changed the procedure of "Information" of the WISC subtest, and this subtest was administered to each 5 subjects among D and ND group. Namingly the procedure of this subtest were substituted pointing for verbal responce. As a result, while there were an increase of the mean 2.2 scores in ND group, there were an increase of the mean 4.2 scores in D group. An increase differed significantly between two groups.

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A survey was designed to explore the interrelationship of visual processing ability, levels of character reading and writing, and behavioral characteristecs of autistic children, using non-autistic subnormal children as a reference group. The fifty-two subjects, whose CAs ranged from 81 to 149 months with a median of 115 months, all attend special classes of elementary schools or special schools at the elementary level. Behavioral characteristics were evaluated by teachers of each child, using 35 items which were constructed from Wing's "A scheme for clinical description and diagnosis." Subjects were divided into an autistic group (N=26) and a non-autistic subnormal group (N=26) by doctor clinical diagnoses. The result of Frostig's developmental test of visual perception showed the inferiority of the autistic group to the nonautistic group in every sub-test, espcially "position in space." As for the 35 items from Wing's scheme, the number of checks in the autistic group was significantly greater than that in the non-autistic, and frequency differences were especially high in items such as "inappropriate emotional reactions," "socially immature and difficult behavior," and "abnormal responses to sensory experiences." Of all the correlations between items, rates were quite high for reading and writing level (φ=0.923) and "position in space" and "figure-ground" (φ= 0.808) . Finally, these items were factor analysed, yielding such factors as "linguistic problems associated with autism," "visual processing ability associated with reading and writting," and "sensory problems associated with autism."

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The purpose of the present study was to clarify the developmental characteristics of organization of memory in the mentally retarded. In early studies, it has been suggested that the categorical organization relates to the concept utilization and that the ability of the concept utilization depends on the mental age (MA) rather than the chronological age (CA). From above findings, it will be suggested that the analysis based on MA should be more effective in examining the developmental characteristics of organization of memory. In the present study, MA was thus adopted as an index of mental development. The subjects were 50 retardates (CA ranging from 8:8 to 15:8; MA ranging from 4:0 to 8:10; IQ ranging from 29 to 66) divided into 5 groups with mean MA of 4:7, 5:5, 6:5, 7:5 and 8:6. The experiments were composed of two tasks. First, subjects were asked of immediate free recall after the presentation of 8 drawing cards which were not meaningfully related to each other. Second, subjects were presented 16 drawing cards. These cards were consisted of 4 cards from 4 conceptual categories (mammal, insect, vegetable, fruit). Subjects, then, were asked to recall the list after sorting the presented cards. From these experiments, it was found that with increase of MA, organization of memory was elaborated and the amount of recall became greater. On the basis of these results, some developmental stages of organization of memory were suggested as follows: Stage 1-Unorganized stage: The level where conceptual categorization has not been formed and not been utilized in memory process. (The group with MA 4 belongs to this stage.) Stage 2 - Intermediate stage: The level where some conceptual categorization has been formed and to a certain extent has been utilized in memory process. (The group with MA 5 represented this stage.) Stage 3 -Organized stage: The level where conceptual categorization has been formed and utilized effectively in memory process. (The groups with MA 6 and MA 7 belong to this stage.) Stage 4 -Elaborated stage: The level where conceptual categorization has already been formed and utilized effectively in memory process. Simultaneously, the essential control process in memory, such as rehearsal strategy, has been observed. (The group with MA 8 represents this stage.) In short, an increase of MA leads to changes in memory process of the mentally retarded. This change proceeds from passive to active functions: (1) rote memory (2) some utilization of conceptual categories (3) effective utilization of conceptual categories (4) simultaneous utilization of conceptual categories and rehearsal strategy

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The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not constructing narratives from each list or word card was effective on the learning situations. Four experiments were designed. In Exp. I, Ss learned 5 serial lists of 10 words each under one of 2 conditions in serial learning. After the 5 lists had been learned, a probe test of each list did not show narrative effect Ss recalling with more facility than control Ss. In Exp. II, Ss learned 5 serial lists of 12 words each under one of 3 conditions in free-recall learning. The results did not indicate the narrative effect. In Exp. III, Ss learned 8 paired lists of 16 words each under one of 4 conditions in paired-associate learning. The results showed the correct responses of the constructing a sentence and reading a short sentence was more great than that of group of reading a long sentence and cotrol group. In Exp. IV, Ss learned 6 paired lists 12 words each under one of 3 conditions in paired-associate learning. The results showed the correct response of the group of constructing a sentence was more great than that of reading a word and control group. The effect of constructing narratives on learning situation was not seen in serial learning and free-recall learning, but seen in paired-associate learning. The results of the four experiments seem to demonstrate that the hearing impaired differed from the hearing in the organization of learning and the hearing impaired was inferior to the hearing in sucessive information processing capacity. It was suggested that the hearing impaired performed the meaningful conditioning of his own by contextual experience.

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