VISUAL PERCEPTION ABILITIES--INDIVIDUALS WITH SEVERE INTELLECT DISABILITIES

本申请旨在支持一项为期五年的研究，研究严重智力残疾人士的视觉感知技能。目的是确定感知困难影响辨别学习的程度。在上一个赠款期间完成的工作已形成了一套有效的综合方法，用于评估和教授难以教的人群相同/不同的判断。迄今为止使用的刺激是沿着几个维度不同的形式。在当前的项目中，我们询问参与者是否能够区分彼此之间更相似的刺激（即，在更少的维度上存在差异）。如果参与者要对印刷字母（例如m和n）或数字等抽象刺激做出不同的反应，那么做出这种区分的能力是必不可少的。（例如，3对8）。为了做出三种相对精细的区分，必须检测（感知）定义刺激差异。然而，直到最近，还不存在分析严重残疾个体感知能力的方法学基础。我们的工作建立了这种潜力，并直接导致了当前的提案。总的来说，我们未来五年的计划是详细阐述和扩展我们已经开发的程序，以便对严重发育迟缓和语言能力有限的个体进行第一次真正的视觉理解。

This application seeks support for a five-year study of visual perceptual skills in individuals who have severe intellectual disabilities. The goal is to determine the extent to which difficulties in perception affect discrimination learning. Work accomplished during the previous grant period has resulted in an effective, integrated set of methods for assessing and teaching same/different judgements with difficult-to-teach populations. Stimuli used thus far have been forms which differed along several dimensions. In the current project, we ask whether participants are capable of discriminating stimuli that are more similar to one another (i.e., that differ along fewer dimensions). The ability to make such discriminations is essential if participants are to respond differentially to abstract stimuli such as printed letters (e.g., m versus n) or numbers. (e.g., 3 versus 8). To make thee relatively fine discriminations, the defining stimulus differences must be detected (perceived). Until recently, however, the methodological foundation for profiling the perceptual abilities of individuals with severe disabilities did not exist. Our work has established this potential and led directly to the current proposal. In overview, our plan for the next five years is to elaborate and extend procedures we have developed in order to conduct the first truly comprehension of visual perception in individuals with severe retardation and limited language skills.