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228 A. EDWARD AHR utilization of other school and community resources, the school psychologist is able to emphasize and play a broader role in the schools, stressing positive mental health and the prevention of more serious problems. LEVEL IV Should the parents not wish to go to an outside source or if a referral was refused for any reason, then the local school psychologist would assume re- sponsibility for the individual evaluation. The school psychologist functions in a setting wherein the provision of a positive mental health program could potentially have far reaching effects on the youth of our nation. Such a program cannot be achieved, much less initiated, until psychol- ogists come to the realization that the one-to-one paradigm involved in the referral- testing cycle does not provide a sound model for a school mental health program. Step IS. DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS OF ACHIEVEMENT PROFILES OF SOCIALLY MALADJUSTED PUPILS DONALD A. LETON AND MARGARET HOLZ' University of Hawaii Los Angeles City Schools Criteria for grouping students in classes for socially maladjusted and emotion- ally disturbed are not clearly formulated nor experimentally validated at the present time. Various professional personnel, e.g., principals, teachers, social workers, counselors and psychologists, are all instrumetal in effecting the placement of such pupils. In referring pupils for social adjustment classes, teachers tend to consider classroom behavior and academic deficiencies as major factors in defining social maladjustment. Other specialists tend to consider such factors as relationship inadequacies, withdrawal and aggressive behavior, emotional immaturity, defective superegos, and sociopathic disturbances, as criteria for such classification. This situation has led to inconsistent standards of eligibility, and to heterogeneous groups of students in adjustment classes. The socio-emotional criteria used by guidance specialists tend to be qualitative and subjective, whereas the classroom behavior and achievement criteria can be quantified. If the socio-emotional criteria were independent of achievement and classroom performance then two distinct bases of selection would exist. Since they are confounded in the child's personality, however, they cannot be considered separately. In a normal classroom situation the intra-group relationships are affected by the achievement skills of individual pupils. A number of pupils may show disdain, rejection, or perhaps sympathy toward other pupils for whom anxiety, immaturity, or social inadequacy impairs their achievement performance. In addi- tion they may also show an aloofness, or social alienation from pupils who develop 'The authors are indebted to the Computing Center at the University of Hawaii for use of its computer facilities and programs.

Discriminant analysis of achievement profiles of socially maladjusted pupils

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Page 1: Discriminant analysis of achievement profiles of socially maladjusted pupils

228 A . EDWARD AHR

utilization of other school and community resources, the school psychologist is able to emphasize and play a broader role in the schools, stressing positive mental health and the prevention of more serious problems.

LEVEL IV

Should the parents not wish to go to an outside source or if a referral was refused for any reason, then the local school psychologist would assume re- sponsibility for the individual evaluation.

The school psychologist functions in a setting wherein the provision of a positive mental health program could potentially have far reaching effects on the youth of our nation. Such a program cannot be achieved, much less initiated, until psychol- ogists come to the realization that the one-to-one paradigm involved in the referral- testing cycle does not provide a sound model for a school mental health program.

Step I S .

DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS OF ACHIEVEMENT PROFILES OF SOCIALLY MALADJUSTED PUPILS

DONALD A. LETON AND MARGARET HOLZ'

University of Hawaii Los Angeles City Schools

Criteria for grouping students in classes for socially maladjusted and emotion- ally disturbed are not clearly formulated nor experimentally validated at the present time. Various professional personnel, e.g., principals, teachers, social workers, counselors and psychologists, are all instrumetal in effecting the placement of such pupils. In referring pupils for social adjustment classes, teachers tend to consider classroom behavior and academic deficiencies as major factors in defining social maladjustment. Other specialists tend to consider such factors as relationship inadequacies, withdrawal and aggressive behavior, emotional immaturity, defective superegos, and sociopathic disturbances, as criteria for such classification. This situation has led to inconsistent standards of eligibility, and to heterogeneous groups of students in adjustment classes.

The socio-emotional criteria used by guidance specialists tend to be qualitative and subjective, whereas the classroom behavior and achievement criteria can be quantified. If the socio-emotional criteria were independent of achievement and classroom performance then two distinct bases of selection would exist. Since they are confounded in the child's personality, however, they cannot be considered separately. In a normal classroom situation the intra-group relationships are affected by the achievement skills of individual pupils. A number of pupils may show disdain, rejection, or perhaps sympathy toward other pupils for whom anxiety, immaturity, or social inadequacy impairs their achievement performance. In addi- tion they may also show an aloofness, or social alienation from pupils who develop

'The authors are indebted to the Computing Center at the University of Hawaii for use of its computer facilities and programs.

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DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS O F ACHIEVEMENT PROFILES OF MALADJUSTED PUPILS 229

high academic achievement as a substitute for social participation. Groups as well as individuals appear to have limits to their acceptance of differences.

Because of the interrelationships among achievement, social, and emotional traits there may be a communality of personality characteristics for socially mal- adjusted pupils. If a set of common characteristics do exist, the question arises as to whether this information may be of value for the identification and classification of such pupils. It is well recognized that indiscriminate placement may be harmful to an individual child. It may also disorganize the structure and functioning of an existing group.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE Quay (1963) concurs that the classification and placement of students in classes

for emotionally disturbed are carried out on an impressionistic basis. He has con- cluded that there are two general classes of such students: the basic withdrawal and the conduct disorder types. The latter is also subdivided into the unsocialized ag- gressive, the neurotic delinquent and the socially underprivileged-conning type. These conclusions are supported largely by the factor analyses of personality in- ventories administered to delinquent boys (Peterson, Quay, & Tiffany, 1961), and by analyses of delinquents’ case histories (Quay, in press). The existence of these types among socially and emotionally disturbed students needs to be verified by factor scores on larger samples from the general student population.

Haring and Phillips (1962) discuss the problem of using achievement as a criterion of emotional disturbance. In agreement with most authors they report that emotionally disturbed pupils show achievement deficits. They conclude, however, that the magnitude of achievement loss without considerations of grade and in- telligence levels would not be meaningful. Lambert (1963) obtained achievement data for pupils with varying levels of school adjustment. She pooled the reading and arithmetic scores from three different achievement batteries, administered at different grade levels, and then extrapolated to an expected achievement for the present placement in the second and fifth grades. She found that the reading and arithmetic grade scores for the preponderance of pupils from all levels of adjustment were within one-half year of their chronological age-grade placements. Because of the inconsistent categorizations for reading and arithmetic achievement and the gross classifications from three different achievement tests these data have little value for defining the achievement characteristics of pupils with poor school ad- justment.

Harris (1961) analyzed the socio-economic characteristics and family relation- ships of emotionally disturbed boys with, or without learning problems. A higher proportion of disturbed boys with learning problems were from lower socio-economic classes. They also lived in family situations which were deterrent to school achieve- ment. This illustrates the type of research needed for the educational classification of emotionally disturbed.

A number of authors recommend special classes and curricula for emotionally disturbed (Coleman & Hewett, 1962; Haring & Phillips, 1962; Topp, 1959; Ber- kowitz & Rothman, 1960). These are consistently oriented toward the emotional or social needs of the children rather than to their educational needs. The author recommends differential teaching to meet the developmental needs for various types

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230 DONALD A. LETON A N D MARGARET HOLZ

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DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS OF ACHIEVEMENT PROFILES OF MALADJUSTED PUPILS 231

of emotionally disturbed pupils (Leton, 1964) ; however, the specific educational needs are only hypothesized a t the present time. In view of the fact that the teacher is the primary source of referrals for placements in adjustment classes it is surprising to find that the achievement characteristics of these pupils are so vaguely defined.

PROCEDURES The piirposes of this study were as follows: (a) to determine the achievement characteristics of

pupils in Social Adjustment (SA) classes, and (b) to determine whether this information might hold value for classifying pupils of similar age, sex, grade, and intelligence levels into either SA or regular classes.

The experimental sample consisted of 89 student>s in intermediat,e SA classes who were admin- istered the 1957 edition of the California Achievement Test Battery (CAT) in the 1962-63 school year.2 The CAT yields subtest scores in Reading Vocabulary (RV), Reading Comprehension (RC), Arithmet,ic Reasoning (AR), Arithmet,ic Fundamentals (AF), Language (L), and Spelling (S). The cont.rol groiip was comprised of 89 pupils of the same sex, grade placement, age ( f 3 months), and I& (k 5 points). Matching for I& scores was based on results of the California Tests of Mental Mahrity. The mean age for the SA pupils was 10.81 and for the regular pupils was 10.78. There were 78 boys and 11 girls in each group. The freqiiency of boys and girls is consist.ent with that generally observed in such classes. The mean intelligence scores for the SA pupils was 84.5, and the matching procediire obtained a mean of 84.6 I& for the regular pripils. The intelligence level of the SA pupils is below the school norm; and the age-grade distributions also indicated a slight educational retardation.

The means, standard deviations, and mean differences on the CAT suhtests are shown in Table 1. The achievement levels of the social adjust,ment pupils show a retardatjion of approximately one

grade in each subject area, whereas the regular pupils showed about .5 grade retardation. The con- figuration of t,he achievement profiles is similar for both groups. In view of the matching procedures a similar configuration could be anticipated. The decrement in the profiles of the SA pupils can be attributed to their social or emotional maladjustment.

ANALYSIS The distributions of achievement scores were analyzed for the discriminant

classification of pupils' membership in SA or regular classes. Discriminant co- efficients and distance functions (Mahalanobis, 1936) were obtained for the six sub- tests on the achievement profiles. The results of these analyses are presented in Table 2.

TABLE 2. DISCRIMINANT WEIGHTS FOR CAT SUBTESTS, Da STATISTICS AND F VALUE

CAT Subtests RV RC AR A F L S Da Fvalue df

-- .I036 +.0975 +. lo97 +.3662 -.1987 +.1612 5.271 37.989. 6,171

*Significant at ,001 level

For classifying pupils into the SA or regular groups the formula Zij = X'S-' dij - 1/2(X&1Xi + XJS-IXj)

is applied in which Zij is the individuals discriminant score; X' is the one-by-six row vector of a given pupil's scores; dij is the six-by-one column vector of mean differences between thc groups; S-' is the inverse of the six-by-six dispersion matrix; Xi and Xj are the six-by-one column vectors of means for the i and j groups; and Xi and Xf are the respective transpose matrices.

*Appreciation is hereby expressed to Mr. Popenoe, Director of Research of the Los Angeles City Schools for his permission to conduct, this study. Acknowledgements are also made to the District Superintendents, Giiidance Supervisors, Principals, and other staff who made the data available for this study.

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232 DONALD A. LETON AND MARGARET HOLZ

This formula assumes equal groups and equal probability for membership in either group. To the extent that matching procedures were successful this assump- tion is met in this study. The obtained equation is:

-.lo36 RV +.0975 RC +.lo97 AR +.3662 AF -.1987 L +.1612 S -1.9738

The application of these discriminant coefficients to the combined samples led to correct classifications of 56 pupils, and to misclassifications of 33 pupils from each group. Although 63% of each group was correctly classified, it is apparent that the group dispersions reflect a sizable overlap between groups. The use of this equation is illustrated in the following example. A vacancy occurs in the SA class for which the counselor or administrator wishes to consider one of two eligible pupils from the waiting list, who have the following achievement scores :

RV RC AR AF, L S Pupil A. 4.0 4.1 3 . 5 5 . 4 4 . 1 3 . 5 Pupil B. 5 . 0 4 .0 3 . 7 4 . 0 4 . 0 3 . 9

Each pupil shows one subtest score near his present grade level and the remain- ing scores are approximately one year below grade level. If the subtest scores were to receive equal weighting the composite achievement would be at the 4.1 grade level for both students. This composite is also comparable to the level of achieve- ment observed in the SA classes. The counselor computes Zij = .1225 for pupil A, and Zij = -.3972 for pupil B. Since the discriminant score for the first pupil is positive he concludes that this pupil should be classified with the regular class group. The negative discriminant score for pupil B indicates achievement characteristics similar to the SA pupils.

DISCUSSION This illustration of the use of discriminant analysis for the classification of

socially maladjusted pupils requires further discussion. The assumption that the original selection procedures were suitable, i.e., the criteria employed for the existing group, is inherent in this application. The use of the procedure described here would insure that later placements would bring a similar pattern of achievement skills. To the extent that such direction is desirable for determining teaching objectives and curriculum planning for these classes it would seem to be of value. It should not be construed that this procedure would refine the previous criteria or alter the composition of the group in terms of its social and emotional characteristics.

If profiles of personal and social characteristics were available, further progress on the classification problem would be possible. Opinions about the existence of syndromes and subdimensions among the emotionally disturbed (e.g. Quay, 1963) could be empirically tested. The intelligence and achievement characteristics which are associated with particular types of maladjustment could subsequently be ana- lyzed for purposes of differential teaching. Finally, the criteria for the selection of homogeneous groups, as well as for the refinement of existing groups could be estab- lished.

The discriminant model employed in this study assumes equal probability of assignment to either group. The application of the equation obtained in this study to a population of regular pupils would not be appropriate because the a priori

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DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS OF ACHIEVEMENT PROFILES OF MALADJUSTED PUPILS 233

probabilities for membership in the socially maladjusted or regular class groups are unequal. Probability coefficients which consider the sizes of the groups and the differences in group dispersions would need to be computed for membership in each of the possible socially maladjusted or regular groups.

There has been an abundance of academic prediction studies in educational research and these have had an important impact on the field of guidance. Actuarial tables for success in specified college curricula are now generally available for educa- tional guidance. Problems of classification and placement, however, are persistently handled by subjective opinions and clinical impressions. Studies of academic pre- diction will probably continue to show the usual attrition and failure rates until better criteria of educational classifications are developed.

REFERENCES BERKOWITZ, P. H., & ROTHMAN, E. P. The disturbed child: recognition and psychoeducational therapy

in the classroom. New York: New York Univer. Press, 1960. COLEMAN, J. C., & HEWETT, F. M. Open-door therapy: a new approach to the treatment of under-

achieving adolescent boys who resist needed psychotherapy. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 1962, 18, 28-33.

HARING, N. G., & PHILLIPS, E. L. Educating emotionally disturbed children. New York: McGraw- Hill, 1962.

HARRIS, I. D. Emotional blocks to learning. New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1961. LAMBERT, N. M. The development and validation of a process lor screening emotionally handicapped

children in school. Sacramento, California: State Department of Education, mimeographed report, 1963.

LETON, D. A. Differential teaching techniques for emotionally disturbed children. Mental Hygiene, 1964, 68. 209-216.

MAHALANOBIS, P. C. On the generalized distance in statistics. Proceedings of the National Institute of Science. India. XI. 1936. 49-55. , ,

PETERSON, D. R., QUAY, H. C., & TIFFANY, T. L. Personality factors related to juvenile delinquency. Child Development, 1961, 32, 335-372.

QUAY, H. C. Dimensions of personality in delinquent boys as inferred from the factor analysis of case historv data. Child Develovment. in Dress.

I *

QUAY, H. C. Some basic considerations in the education of emotionally disturbed children. Exceptional Children, 1963, SO, 27-32.

TOPP, R. F. Psychotherapy in the classroom. Child Education, 1959,35,406-408.

EDUCATIONAL ASPECTS OF COGNITIVE-PERCEPTUAL-MOTOR DEFICITS IN EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED CHILDREN

GAYLE R. BECK, ELI Z. RUBIN, JEAN BRAUN, LELA A. LLORENS,

CHARLES D. BEALL, AND NORRIS MOTTLEY

Lafayette Clinic, Detroit, Michigan

In recent years much emphasis has been placed upon the education of emotion- ally disturbed children. Along with increased awareness has come the concern and willingness to provide for individual differences among all children through the establishment of specialized educational programs in public schools, psychiatric hospitals and residential treatment centers. A major problem, however, in providing appropriate educational programs stems from a lack of clarity in the approach to understanding the maladaptive behavior in many of these youngsters.