The purpose of this study was to analyze the classroom interaction of mentally retarded children with their teacher using the Triad Analysis System (Tsuge, Musashi, and Kobayashi, 1988). Results verified the appearance of triads including children's learning activities (C7) in response to the teacher's question (T2), types T2-C7-T2, T2-C7-teacher's positive behaviour (T3) and T2-C7-Teacher's teaching (T5). Triad types T3-C7-T5 and T5-C7-T5 were found to appear frequently in response to other teacher action. The rate of Triads T2-C7-T5, T5-C7-T5, and teacher's instructions (T1)-childrens' only responses (C9)-T1 also increased. The different types of interactions occurred simultaneously in the classroom.

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The purpose of this study was to increase the use of selective manding (verbal response to an adult in the absence of stimulus objects) in a child with Cri-du-chat syndrome by stimulus transference from a specific object to an adult. Previous studies aimed at establishing manding in children were performed in treatment settings where desired objects were presented under conditions of deprivation (the subject could not obtain these objects by himself). Treatment outcomes of these investigations generally increased frequency of manding (requesting objects to be presented). A failure of these studies, however, was the inability of subjects to perform manding until presentation of the object. It is suggested that selectivity involving requests for one of several objects presented severely limits generalization to everyday settings. In the present study, manding was chained to the subject touching an adult (discriminative stimulus) with the hand. Subsequently, this response was transferred from object to adult. Finally, if the subject touched the adult and a few seconds elapsed, the adult presented a picture card of a few desired objects. Duration of presentation of this card was faded. Results show that the value of stimulus control on the manding is transferable, and that both the techniques of delayed presentation of picture card and of fading the duration of card presenting are effective. Following the successful transference of stimulus control, verbal behavior is naturally transformed in terms of more accurate specification of the reinforcer (e.g., "bigger tricycle"-okii sanrinsya).

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The purpose of this study was to analyze units and subject content of educational resource material used in special education. Analysis of information gathered from 39 manuals of teaching practice and 118 lesson plans reveal that the frequency of units in integrated instructional format is 50% and content (44%), and in other school subjects, 84% and 79% respectively. These findings suggest a lack of direction and interchangeability of unit and subject content in special education.

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Natural communication methods with adult subjects using gestural monitoring and modelling were used in a therapeutic intervention with a nine year old pre-linguistic child with severe mental retardation. Gestural monitoring occurs when an adult imitates the spontaneous gestural behaviour of the child by responding to requests. Modelling is used to shape more complex and elicited gestural behaviour. It was hypothesized that these strategies would significantly influence communication between adult and child, and increase the frequency of the child's complex gestures. In phase one of the study, a pressing of hands gesture was imitated. In phase two, the adult responded to this gesture by touching the object requested. Finally, the adult response involved pointing to an out-of reach object. In the latter two phases, both spontaneous and elicited touching and reaching were imitated. Results demonstrate a low rate of successful negotiations between adult and child underlies communication failure. Prior to intervention, immediate adult response to gesture, or verbal demands to specify target objects or actions was observed. Following intervention, the child visually attended while using the "pressing hands" gesture, began to use touch or reach for objects while looking, and to respond to questions asking for details of the target object by touch or reaching gestures. The findings support the hypothesis that adult gestural monitoring and modelling have a positive effect on communication and the complex gestural behaviour of a pre-linguistic severely mentally retarded child.

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The purpose of this study is to confirm the discrepancy between verbal and performance intelligence quotients (VIQ<PIQ) and low scores of arithmetic, digit span and/or coding subtests on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale (revised version) reported in children with Duchenne Muscular Dystropy (DMD), and to identify causal factors. Results showed a significant discrepancy on the WISC-R arithmetic and coding subtests for 40 DMD subjects. Multiple regression analysis of factors of anxiety, attention deficit and/or sequential processing ability revealed that deficits in sequential processing ability are of significant in explaining the discrepancy.

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This study examines the effectiveness of self-instruction intervention strategies in story comprehension of preschool age children with mental retardation. Metacognition and inference formed the basis of strategies used and included (a) task de-finition (e.g. "What do I do here?"), (b) self-reinforcement (e.g. "Very good! I am really doing well!"), (c) self-evaluation (e.g. "That is okay."), (d) self-coping for the error (e.g."I am mistaken. I will try back again."). The intervention strategy involved the following phases. Cognitive modelling (observation of model task performance), overt guidance (generation of instructions in response to verbal instructions used in the model performance), and faded self-guidance (verbalization of model instructions during task performance). Three trials were administered to four subjects and verbal inferences were recorded. Results show an increase in comprehension test scores and in frequency of verbal inferences of story material for three of the four subjects. Further, these results were found to be generalizable to other settings. The findings support the notion that self-instruction training in story comprehension for the mentally retardation is effective, and that metacognitive element of intervention strategy has a positive effect on motivation.

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