Two Mildly Retarded Samples: A 20-Year Follow-Up

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall objective of this revised submission is to conduct an ethnographic investigation of mildly mentally retarded adults during their mid-life years using a life-course developmental perspective. The participants will be derived from samples of low-income and working class African-Americans and working and middle-class Whites in the Los Angeles area who were initially studied by our research group in 1978. The approximately two-thirds of the survivors who will be age 41 through 59 in the year 2002 are the focus of this investigation. Due to the confounding of race and class in the two samples, no comparisons on such dimensions are proposed. Rather, we plan to examine and compare adaptive behavior within each group and between the earlier and later study periods. The study has four specific aims: 1. To examine how quality of life is described and assessed by African-American and White mid-life adults labeled as mildly mentally retarded; 2. To examine quality of life as related to sociocultural aspects of development among African-American and White mid-life adults labeled as mildly mentally retarded; 3. To describe developmental pathways in the same samples of adults in terms of normative developmental markers--in particular, social relationships, family formation, educational and work experiences, crisis management and adaptation more generally; 4. To examine in the same samples access to and use of social services across the life course. Using ethnographic methods, we plan to interview and observe 30 African-American and 30 White participants of the 139 people who participated in our earlier study of the adaptation of mildly mentally retarded adults. Domains of inquiry will include quality of life, developmental markers and transitions, social support networks, life goals, health, and service usage. Among the analytic strategies to be employed are ethnographic content analysis (Crabtree & Miller, 1992), sequential analysis, and consensus analysis.