(c) 2006 by Pearson Education. All Rights Reserved. Psychosocial Aspects of Intellectual Disability Beirne-Smith et al. Mental Retardation, Seventh Edition

(c) 2006 by Pearson Education. All Rights Reserved.

Psychosocial Aspects of Intellectual Disability

Beirne-Smith et al.Mental Retardation, Seventh Edition

Copyright ©2006 Pearson Education, Inc.Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458

All rights reserved.


The Nature-Nurture Debate

• The age-old argument concerns whether nature (a person’s biological makeup) or nurture (learning that takes place within a person’s environment) is responsible for shaping character.

• Most experts are now willing to acknowledge that biology and environment both affect development, and that they interact and even influence each other.

• Experts continue to debate over which influence is most important.





The Nature-Nurture DebateBehavior Geneticists

• Scientists who believe behavior is largely shaped by genetics

• Base arguments on statistical analyses

• Make compelling arguments that 50% of intelligence can be attributed to genes

• Arguments indicate that environmental effects are strongest for persons whose experiences are out of the ordinary





The Nature-Nurture DebateThe Psychosocial Position

• Environment and experiences influence development

• Education and intervention can mitigate outcomes





The Role of Poverty





Psychosocial Disadvantage

• Refers to homes that cannot provide the basic environmental stimulation necessary for optimal child development

• Most psychosocially disadvantaged children come from impoverished homes, but most impoverished homes DO NOT lead to psychosocial disadvantage





Psychosocial Mental RetardationCharacteristics

• No discernable cause of mental retardation

• Usually results in Mild to Borderline Intellectual Disability

• Households are highly stressed

• Mothers often have low IQ, as well





The Milwaukee Project

• Most famous study of compensatory intervention• Set in a 1960s Milwaukee housing project

identified as having a higher than expected rate of mental retardation

• Interventions were designed to introduce conditions common in households led by economically advantaged mothers without intellectual disabilities

• Consisted of family rehabilitation and child stimulation





The Milwaukee ProjectResults

• Children who received the intervention had IQs that averaged 30 points higher than those who did not.

• Additional cognitive improvements were noted• Follow-up assessments of IQ indicated smaller

differences continued through age 10 • 60% of the control group children were classified

as mentally retarded by the end of the fourth grade, while none of the children who received the intervention package met that criteria





The Milwaukee ProjectCaveats

• Positive outcomes did not necessarily lead to positive scholastic outcomes

• Interventions were probably too intensive to be applied outside the world of research

• Criticisms were made of the lax scientific procedures





Six-Hour Retarded Child

• Concept identified by the President’s Committee on Mental Retardation (1969)

• Children and youth who were identified as being ‘educable mentally retarded’ only during their school hours and only during their school lives

• disproportionately African-American and poor • Idea was supported by Garrison & Hammill’s 1971 study,

Who Are the Retarded? • African-American children are still more likely than

children from other racial groups to be labeled with mental retardation by the public schools.





Six-Hour Retarded ChildPossible Explanations

• Misidentification– An over-reliance on IQ scores without

regard to adaptive behavior indices.

• Misplacement– The desire to move children with

behavioral or learning difficulties from regular classrooms





Six-Hour Retarded ChildPossible Explanations

• Test Bias– Cultural differences make it difficult for

the children to assimilate into the middle-class, Caucasian school culture

• Real Difference– The children have cognitive limitations,

but are not required to use such skills in their home and future work environments.





Psychosocial Interventions





Time and again, psychologists and educators have promised more than they could deliver. Quite often, history would show that the interventions led to important outcomes. However, these outcomes would be overlooked because the loftier goals that had been set in the beginning (often to increase IQ or eradicate mental retardation) failed to be achieved.





Early Intervention ResearchHarold Skeels’ Orphanage Study

• Removed children under three from an environmentally deprived orphanage to a ward of older girls

• No other intervention; the older girls paid lots of attention to the children

• The children experienced gains in IQ ranging from 7 to 58 points

• IQs remained higher at 2-4 year follow-up testing• At 30-year follow-up, all were self-sustaining

adults without mental retardation





Early Intervention ResearchHarold Skeels’ Orphanage Study

• Control group children who remained in the regular nursery ward of the orphanage lost IQ points over time

• At 30-year follow-up, only one control group child was a self-sustaining citizen

• Study demonstrated that children with environmentally imposed mental retardation could achieve normal IQ, but also that children with normal IQ could become mentally retarded, given a non-stimulating environment





Early Intervention ResearchHead Start

• part of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty • engineered to provide compensatory services to children

of poverty • a 1966 report indicated Head Start and similar programs

provided no gains or gains that were merely transitory • teachers and families continued to provide positive

feedback • subsequent research indicated improvements in

motivation, basic health, parenting skills, and future placement in integrated settings but not permanent changes in IQ





Early Intervention ResearchCurrent Programs

• IQ gains diminish after three years

• academic gains diminish within 5-6 years

• intensity of the program and the degree of investment of the participants are the most important factors for efficacy

• focus has expanded beyond IQ to factors that improve lifestyle outcomes





Segregation & LabelingSeparate Classes

• Purpose is to provide intensive, individualized, functional instruction

• Research from the 1970s indicated special classes did not improve educational outcomes for children with mild mental retardation

• Advocates noted that segregation caused children to miss out on peer modeling and violated their civil rights

• Research demonstrated the practice was demoralizing and worsened problems of adjustment






• Macmillan’s Rebuttal– some children were deriving benefit from the special

classes – Those who weren’t benefiting were misplaced– questioned the design of many previous studies– most studies showed no academic difference, not

academic impairment from special education – Cited other studies that indicate advantages to special

classrooms






• Modern Perspective– Research results are equivocal– Many factors, including the skill of the

teacher, intervene to influence whether learning occurs in any setting

– Focus is on civil rights





Segregation & LabelingInstitutions

• Originally conceived as training facilities to prepare for life outside the facility

• Research from the 1980s indicated most people did not ever leave the facility

• Advocates began to claim that institutions worsened disabilities





Segregation & LabelingThe “Mental Retardation” Label

• Described by Dunn (1968) as “a destructive, self-fulfilling prophecy”

• Leads to diminished sense of self-efficacy • Associated with lower expectations from

significant others • Edgerton (1967) found that the need to “appear

normal” and to deny mental retardation was the most prominent theme among people with mental retardation living independently





Segregation & LabelingNormalization

• Described by Nirje (1969) & Wolfensberger (1972)

• Suggested people with intellectual disabilities would learn better by experiencing the environments for which they were being prepared





Segregation & LabelingInclusion Philosophies

• Full inclusion– all children should be allowed to participate in regular

classrooms all the time.

• Partial inclusion– if a person can live and learn effectively in an

integrated setting, it is their right to be there. However, regular classrooms can’t effectively manage students with rare or unusually severe problems, especially if those problems will infringe upon the rights of the other children





Cultural Considerations





Minority Groups & Diagnosis

• Edgerton– Measurement procedures are conducted in

culturally biased ways due to ethnocentrism

• Adaptive behavior– To be considered adaptive, a person must

understand what is necessary and valuable for life in his or her culture. When moving into a new culture, one must be able to adapt to the new values.





Chapter Summary

The Role of Poverty• Children of culturally deprived homes are at risk for the

development of mental retardation.• Proper nutrition, caring interaction, a responsive

language environment, and stimulating surroundings are all required for optimal intellectual development.

• Compensatory interventions can provide benefits to children of culturally-deprived homes.

• Some children of low-income, minority households may exhibit symptoms of mental retardation in school without noticeable difficulties in their home environments.





Chapter SummaryPsychosocial Interventions• Special education methods were founded on the idea

that destiny is not shaped entirely by genetics, and all people are capable of learning, growing, and changing.

• Although many important accomplishments can be made through psychosocial interventions, compensatory education cannot promise to eliminate all mental retardation and associated problems.

• The most effective compensatory intervention programs begin in infancy.

• In general, integrated settings are preferable for people with mental retardation to live and learn. There are many negative effects of segregation and labeling, which must be balanced against the ability of the integrated setting to provide meaningful support.





Chapter Summary

Cultural Considerations• Cultural differences must be considered in the

assessment of children from minority groups.• A person’s ability to adapt to cultural norms greatly

affects his ability to function successfully in that society.• Disability labels can have a self-fulfilling prophecy

attached to them, due to decreased feelings of self-esteem and to the lowered expectations of significant others.

• In Edgerton’s classic study, The Cloak of Competence, people with mental retardation living in the community exhibited only one common theme: the desire to deny the presence of mental retardation.




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(c) 2006 by Pearson Education. All Rights Reserved. Psychosocial Aspects of Intellectual Disability Beirne-Smith et al. Mental Retardation, Seventh Edition