Learning and behaviour characteristics

As discussed ealier, persons with mental retardation manifest substantial limitations in age

appropriate intellectual and adaptive behaviour. There are deficits in cognitive functioning

that are associated with poor memory , slow learning rates , attention problems , difficulty at

generalizing what has been learned and lack of motivation. Many individuals with mental

retardation are able to acquire the skills for adaptive behaviour , but a larger number are not

able to do so throughout their life span.

Studies show that many of these children are identified for the first time when they start

going to school. They find difficulties in doing school work and fail the grade levels. Their

classmates leave them behind in the achievement of the skills in the subject areas. Those

with moderate retardation show significant delays in development during the preschool

years. In general, as they grow older, the discrepancies in overall intellectual development

and adaptive functioning vecame wider when compared to normal age-mates. Many of them

can learn the academic skills up to the sixth grade level and master job skills well enough to

be able to work and support themselves semi-independently when they leave school.

Deficits in cognitive functioning

Sub-average intellectual skills. As stated earlier, the first defining characteristic of persons

with mental retardation is below average mental ability as measured by standardized tests.

Low academic achievement. Due to sub-average intellectual functioning , persons with

mental retardation are likely to be slower in reaching levels of academic achievement equal

to their peers.

Difficulty in attending to tasks. The attention of these children tends to be distracted by

irrelevant stimuli rather than those that pertain to the lesson. Likewise , they have difficulty in

sustaining their attention to learning tasks. These attention problems contribute to the

development of concomitant problems such as difficulties in remembering and generalizing

newly learned lessons and skills.

Deficits in memory

These students have difficulty in retaining and recording information in the short term or

working memory. Information encountered a few seconds earlier cannot be recalled.

Research shows that many persons with retardation have good long-term memory, but they

have difficulty remembering in the short-term, especially if the facts are complex.

Difficulty with the generalization of skills. The inability to generalize is related to the inability

to think abstractly. Students with mental retardation often have trouble in transferring their

new knowledge and skills into settings or situations that differ from the context in which they

first learned those skills.

Low motivation. Some students show lack of interest in learning their lessons. Some of them

develop learned helplessness where they expect to continue to fail in doing certain tasks

because they have not been able to do the tasks in the past. To avoid failure, the person

with any disability because it is learned. Constant comparison to others who perform in many

areas with apparent ease can be frustrating and diminish motivation and self-esteem, and

sometimes create “learned helplessness” and belief in consistent failure.

Deficits in adaptive behaviour

Due to the fact that adaptation to one’s social and physical environment requires intellectual

ability, person with mental retardation are likely to demonstrate significant deficits in adaptive

behaviour.

Self – care and daily living skills. They are often taughtbasic self-care skills deliberately

which normal individuals learn by absorption and imitation. Direct instruction, simplified

routine, prompts and task analysis are used to teach self-car e skills in hygiene and

grooming, daily living skills in eating, toileting, communication and the other areas of

adaptive behavior.

Social development. Limited cognitive processing skills, poor language development, and

unusual or inappropriate behaviours can seriously impede interaction with others. Thus ,

making friends and sustaining personal relationships are difficult for persons with mental

retardation.

Behavioral excesses and challenging behaviour. Compared to children without disabilities,

student with mental retardation are more prone to inappropriate behaviour. They have

difficulties accepting criticism, limited self-control, as well as behaviour problems like

aggression or self-injury.

Pshychological characteristics. As in the case of speech and language problems, mentally

retarded persons have slower pshychlogical development (e.g., toilet training , walking) and

are likely to have some forms of associated physical problems.

Positive characteristics. Like everyone else, persons with mental retardation have their

unique characteristics. While they may have negative attributes like those described earlier,

many of them have positive characteristics like friendliness and kindness. They can be fun to

be with and they can get along well with others. Being with them makes one appreciate

one’s normal attributes.

ASSESMENT PROCEDURES

In general, in the Philippines where the educational system hardly provides for clinicians like

school psychologists or psychometricians, initial assessment is done by the classroom

teacher in order to identify who among their students are in need of special education. Initial

assessments is done through teacher nomination. For school-age children, teachers are an

important source of information about their learning and behaviour attributes. A checklist of

the learning and behaviour characteristics of children with special education needs is used,

when a child manifests half or more than half of the characteristics in the checklist, then the

final assessment follows. Here , a guidance councelor and or special education teacher

administers the appropriate assessment tools developed by the special education division of

the bureau of elementary education of the department of education.

When a child is suspected to have a developmental disability such as mental retardation a

complete diagnosis of the condition is necessary , a through assessment of the condition is

critical in considering a childs eligibility for special educational services, and or aid in

planning the educational and other services he/she and the family may need. The

assessment process covers a more intensive observation and evaluation of the child’s

cognitive and adaptive skills, analysis of medical history especially of the mother’s condition

during pregnancy and other circumstances related to causative factors and the childs current

level of functioning. The use of more than one assessment procedure provides a wealth of

information about the child permitting the evaluation of the biological, cognitive , social ,

interpersonal variables that affect the child’s current behaviour.

In the diagnostic assessment of children, parents and other significant individuals in the

child’s environment provide a rich source of information. The components of

assessment,informal and standardized tests, home visits, interview , and observation

complement each other and form a firm foundation for making correct decisions abaout the

child. Certainly, major discrepancies among the findings obtained from the various

assessments procedures must be resolved before any diagnostic decisions or

recommendations are made. For example, if the intelligence test results indicate that the

child is currently functioning in the sub-average range, while the interview data and the

adaptive behavior characteristic suggest average functioning, it is necessary to reconcile

these disparate findings before making a diagnosis. An evaluation report that provides

information relevant to instruction and other services is useful to both teachers and parents.

The inclusion of families in the management of their children’s education presents new

challenges. Nevertheless, their participation in arriving at important decisions about the

children will ultimately be rewarding and beneficial to all the members of the team.

Models of Assessment (Richey and Wheeler,2000)

Three assessment models are used in western countries. These are the traditional,team

based and activity –based models of assessment.

Traditional Assessment

In the traditional assessment model, the parents fill in a pre-referral form about the family

history and the developmental history of the child. Then the child and parents are referred to

a team of clinical practitioners for through evaluation of the child’s intellectual, sosio-

emotional and physical development,health conditionand other significant information. The

members of the team are a developmental psychologist,an early childhood special educator,

an early childhood educator, a speech/language pathologist (SLP), an occupational therapist

, a physical therapist, a child psychiatrist or clinical psychologist,a physician and nurse,an

audiologist and other specialists contribute their own specialized skills to the evaluation

process.

Team-based assessment approaches

Because children with mental retardation often have other problems, it is necessary to

involve a team of practitioners from different areas like the specialists in the traditional model

of assessment. The team-based approach is described as multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary

and transdisciplinary in nature.

In multidisciplinary assessment, individual team members independent assessment the child

and report results without consulting or integrating their findings with one another.

In interdisciplinary assessment, the members conduct an independent assessment and

evaluation individually the findings are integrated together with the recommendations.

Transdisciplinary assessment on the other hand, allows other team members as facilitators

during the assessment process. A natural extension of this approach is the involvement of

the family in the decision-making process.

Activity based assessment

The activity based model of assessment for young children with developmental selay or

disability is batter than the other models because of parental involvement as well as

devolopmentof meaningful, child-centred, positive behaviour supports and activity based

interventions. Assessment findings are easily translated into the childs program plan. The

assessment materials have a curriculum and evaluation components, and do not require

specialised materials or test kits. Examples of criterion referenced assessment tools are the

Assessment,evaluation, and programming system for infants and children (AEPS) and the

infant-preschool assessment scale (IPAS).

Cognitive/Developmental Assessment Tools

Some of the commonly used assessment tools for measuring the mental ability of children

with mental retardation are: The differential ability scales (DAS), Wechsler preschool and

primary scale of intelligence-Revised (WPPSIR) and the Stanford Binet:fourth edition.