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 ones 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
ones 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 childs
cognitive and adaptive skills, analysis of medical history especially of the mothers 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 childs current behaviour.
In the diagnostic assessment of children, parents and other significant individuals in the
childs

environment

provide

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 childrens 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 childs intellectual, sosioemotional 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.