Some verbal mediation studies have pointed out that mentally retarded children show a mediational deficit. These studies have used ability in verbal knowledge and conceptual naming as elements. However, they do not mention how these elements operate on the verbal mediation process. The purpose of this study was to investigate verbal mediation in normal and retarded children from the standpoint of logical operations by classification using a number concept attainment task. There were two groups; 11 mentally retarded children (average MA 5.1) and 11 normal children (average MA 4.6). Each group was divided into subgroups A and B. In the first session, groups A and B underwent test trials after experiencing verbal and non-verbal trials respectively. One week later in the second session, the procedures were reversed for each group. The subjects were presented with 2-5 number sets in the verbal trials and were required to say "more" or "less". In these trials, 5 was the correct response. In the nonverbal trials, subjects were presented with 1-4 number sets. In these trials, 1 was the correct answer. Subjects who met criterion in the verbal or non-verbal trials were given the test trials in which 10 sets of numbers were paired randomly. The results were as follows. 1) The percentage of subjects who met criterion in the verbal and non-verbal trials was 61.1% in the mentally retarded group and 88.8% in the normal group. 2) There was no significant difference in the amount of trials needed to reach criterion in groups A and B, in either condition in both groups. 3) The mean number of correct responses in the test trial was 9.3 in normal children in the verbal and non-verbal conditions. It was 7.2 in the verbal condition and 5.5 in the non-verbal condition in mentally retarded children. 4) The percentage of correct responses on the first trial of the test trials was 90.9% in normal children in both verbal and non-verbal conditions. It was 63.6% and 45.4% respectively in mentally retarded children. The above-mentioned results were discussed from the point of view of logical operations by classification.

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The present study was designed to examine the development of metamemorial ability in mentally retarded and nonretarded children. Three kinds of tasks, looking, recognition readiness, and recall readiness, were given to all subjects and their studying time and study behaviors were observed. It was expected that if a child had the knowledge that the recall task is more difficult than the recognition task, he would spend a longer time and try more strategies to enhance his memory at the recall task than at the recognition task. The subjects were 12 younger (MA 6 years) and 10 older (MA 10 years) mentally retarded children who attended special classes and 49 younger (MA 6 years) and 41 older (MA 10 years) normal children who attended regular classes. Three different lists of line drawings of ten common objects were employed for each subject. Ten items were mounted in a row on an 8×70cm white presentation card to make a list. A presentation apparatus was prepared. This had ten doors located in a row at the top. The subject could open one door at a time to see the item behind the door. The experiment was run individually. First, the subject was given the looking task with the instruction, "Please open these doors and see if every door has a picture behind it. And as soon as you finish your task, let me know by raising your hand." The subject's studying time and study behaviors, i.e. rehearsal and self-checking, were recorded. When the subject finished looking at the items and raised his hand, he was required to recall the items freely. Following this task, half of the subjects were given recall readiness and then the recognition readiness tasks. The other half of the subjects were given the two tasks in the reverse order. At the beginning of the recall readiness task, the subject was instructed that he could freely study the items for a future recall test. At the recognition readiness task, the subject was given free study time for the future recognition test. The experimenter stressed the difference of task format between the two readiness tasks by saying, "This time you'll have to remember and tell all of the items by yourself. No hint will be given. (This time I'll show you many cards one by one. Your task then is to identify which of the pictures are the ones you have remembered during the study period.)" The subject's studying time and study behaviors were recorded. The results showed that there was no significant difference in studying time or study behaviors between the retarded and non-retarded children when MA matching was done. MA 6 children spent a shorter time in the looking task than in the two readiness tasks and no difference was found between these tasks. MA 10 children spent a significantly longer time in order of the recall, the recognition, and the looking task. MA 10 children used more rehearsal strategies than MA 6 children. Rehearsals were more often used in order of the recall, the recognition, and the looking tasks. These results suggested that MA 6 children could differentiate between looking and memorizing but could not between recall and recognition.

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Although there is a lot of research on the concept of nature by healthy subjects, there is none handicapped subjects. In this study, I examined and compared the concept of nature by visually handicapped and sighted students. I suggest that this research should be of interest to persons associated with the education of visually handicapped. I used free association as a test method. I make a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the words associated to every stimuls word, and a hierarchical cluster analysis of responses to stimulus words based on the overlap of associate words. Subjects were junior high school students or students of a school for the blind: sighted, partially sighted, or congenitally blind(blind). The results are summarized as follows. Visually handicapped students have less vocabulary about nature than sighted students. The structure of visually handicapped students' concepts about nature is not as clear as that of sighted students, and the structure of blind students' concepts is not as clear as that of partially sighted students.

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In many previous studies of the intelligence structure of mental retardates, factor analysis or principal component analysis have been applied to data on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) or the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) has never been used to investigate the intelligence structure of retardates. The aim of the present study is to examine the possibility of the application of MDS to the study of the intelligence structure of mental retardates. We applied MDS to the similarity matrix of data on WAIS. The data of two groups, mentally retarded persons and normal persons, were analyzed. The similarity matrices among WAIS subtests for the two groups were separately analyzed using the non-metric MDS (MDSCAL). We fitted the Euclidian distance function to the data. The results of MDS were as follows: Two dimensions were found in common for the two groups. The stress value for the two dimensional structure of the retarded group was 0.116 and that of the normal group was 0.131. The two common dimensions were interpreted as (1) the dimension of verbal ability and (2) the dimension of numerical ability. There were no clear differences in intelligence structure between the mental retardates and the normals. These results supported the results of our previous studies which used principal component analyses. By means of MDS, we were able to represent the intelligence structure of retardates and normals in smaller dimensions than principal component analysis. In conclusion, this study indicated that the application of MDS to the study of intelligence structure is useful.

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The patient, a 13 year old junior high school girl, was diagnosed as having had a cerebrovascular accident (stroke) with right hemiparesis and total aphasia after left thalamic hemorrhage. Behavior of the patient was characterized by inability to hear, read or write, inattentiveness, and psychosomatic reaction. The patient frequently complained of an urge to urinate. Temper tantrums were common because of frustrated efforts to communicate. Frustration in trying and failing to speak was understandably great and may were approached a "catastrophic reaction"(Goldstein, K.; 1948). Strokes cause considerable anxiety and practical difficulties to the family of the patient. The purpose of counseling for the mother was to relieve anxiety and explain the scientific aspects of the team approach torehabilitation. Counseling for the mother was helpful to accept her child's emotional condition. The mother showed a decreased level of anxiety. We dealt with a severely aphasic patient, and established a program within the capacity of the patient, so that the patient experienced nearly continual success. We emphasized the importance of speech therapy as a psychotherapeutic tool because it is one of the most significant supportive types of care the stroke patient receives. We concluded that emotional turmoil is a more specific complication of stroke than simply a response to the motor disability, and it is possible that emotional factors are more important in patients with aphasia than in those without aphasia.

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