Suppl: Communication of People with Mental Retardation

对语言和交流的理解对理解智力低下至关重要，因为它们控制、表达或调节了我们三个主要发展领域的大部分：智力、社交和身体。因此，语言和交流必须成为智力障碍研究的中心焦点。这项拟议的研究是以人类发展的概念化为指导的，强调发展尖点的中心行为、技能、感知或动机相互作用的交叉点，这对成功谈判的下一步至关重要，然而，允许发生一系列重要的后续发展。研究中选择的尖点似乎对交际发展过程至关重要，并且代表了不同的点(从早期的和初级的到晚期的和成熟的)。它们代表了包括精神发育迟滞者在内的各种人的问题。它们横跨智力、社会和身体发展领域，似乎服从于现实的干预。因此，我们的研究结果可以直接有助于预防和/或改善精神发育迟滞的重要方面。我们的计划是使智障人士能够：学习如何表现他们的偏好并在其中做出选择，主要是通过学会区分强化的偶发事件(项目I，桑德斯和桑德斯)；更频繁地将自己置于支持和加强他们沟通尝试的环境中，主要是通过发展积极的社会关系(项目II，谢尔曼和谢尔顿)；学习保持沟通尝试，直到主要通过学习进行沟通修复来实现沟通(项目III，布雷迪)；以及使用语言生活技能影响他们自己的问题解决能力，主要是通过学习自学(项目IV，贝尔和格罗特)。HART(项目V)根据前几年收集的大量语言样本数据库，建议继续增加我们对唐氏综合症儿童和典型发育儿童语言发展之间的异同的理解，主要是通过检查陈述句的发展，因为它们可能与增强表达能力有关。

Understanding of language and communication is crucial to understanding mental retardation because they control, express, or mediate much of our three major developmental spheres: the intellectual, social, and physical. For this reason, language and communication must be a central focus of research in mental retardation. The proposed research was guided by a conceptualization of human development that stressed the centrality of the developmental cusp an intersection in the interaction of behavior, skill, perception, or motivation, that is crucial to what should come next in successful negotiation, however, permits a significant set of subsequent developments to occur. The cusps chosen to be studied in the proposed research appear critical to the process of communicative development and are representative of a diversity of points (from early and rudimentary to late and sophisticated). They are representative of the problems of a diversity of people including those with mental retardation. They span the intellectual, social, and physical spheres of development, and seem amenable to realistic intervention. Thus, the results of our research can contribute directly to preventing and/or ameliorating significant aspects of mental retardation. Our plan is to enable persons with mental retardation to: learn how to demonstrate their preferences and choose among them, primarily by learning to discriminate reinforcement contingencies (Project I, Saunders & Saunders); put themselves more frequently in contexts that support and enhance their attempts to communicate, primarily by developing positive social relationships (Project II, Sherman & Sheldon); learn to maintain communication attempts until communication is achieved primarily by learning to make communication repairs (Project III, Brady); and, use language-life skills to affect their own problem-solving abilities, primarily by learning to self-instruct (Project IV, Baer & Grote). Hart (Project V), working from an extensive database of language samples collected in prior years, proposes to continue to increase our understanding of the similarities and differences between the language development of children with Down syndrome and typically developing children, primarily by examining the development of declarative sentences as they may be related to the enhancement of expressive language.