C. Edward Meyers

Home environment, family adjustment, and the development of mentally retarded children.

Abstract This study describes the relationships between home environment, family adjustment and the social competency of TMR and EMR children. The home environmental variables included parental behavior and attitude, psychosocial climate, and demographic and structural characteristics of the families. The measures of family adjustment included the mentally retarded childs impact on the family and the familys capacity to cope with mental retardation. The child characteristics were described in terms of adaptive and maladaptive behavior, psychological and social adjustment, and self-concept measures. Canonical correlation analysis revealed conceptual and statistical linkages between home environment, family adjustment, and the competency of mentally retarded children.

Validity of psychologists' identification of EMR students in the perspective of the California decertification experience ☆

Abstract The Diana (Diana v. State Board of Education, Note 1) and the Larry P. (Larry P. v. Riles, Note 2) litigations led to decertification of thousands of California EMR students and their return to the regular program. Allegations, including those of biased testing, went largely uncontested in order that change in special education could result from court mandate, but the allegations left the psychologists in a libeled state. A study of cumulative records and psychologists files in 12 representative districts permitted a comparison of the EMR placement of those later decertified (D) with matched nondecertified (EMR). Other than a small mean difference in IQ at placement, nothing was found to support various allegations. Records showed no systematic differences betweeen D and EMR groups in pre-EMR reasons for referral nor in teacher marks, discnfirming beliefs in referral of higher functioning students for deportment rather than for academic failure. Districts permitted a mean of at least two years in regular placement before assessment, attesting to class failure rather than IQ as the initial and necessary basis for EMR identification (no D-EMR difference in this either). The data permit a conclusion that the work of the school psychologists in the EMR placement was professionally competent, given the guidelines in effect at the time.

Salient Dimensions of Home Environment Relevant to Child Development

Publisher Summary Quantification of the home environment appears to have followed three different theoretical approaches: (1) the study of general psychosocial climate of the home as perceived by the family members, (2) work on environment process or the reinforcement analysis of learning environment, which is an outgrowth of the social learning theory, and (3) research on child-rearing attitudes and practices. These theoretical approaches have provided the framework for the development of various instruments to measure home environment that use observational and interview methods. The chapter describes several of the instruments developed to measure these three areas and the research that has employed these techniques. The home quality rating scale (HQRS) is the only instrument that measures childrearing attitudes and values. Two of its factors—harmony and quality of parenting and concordance in support of child care—are related to several measures of psychosocial adjustment both at home and school.

Chapter 4: Educational Labeling of Handicapped Learners

Recent concern over the labeling of children became so great that it led to a major project funded by nine agencies within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to study and report on issues related to classification and the consequent labeling of children. This project was headed by Professor Nicholas Hobbs of Vanderbilt University and resulted in a three-volume report (Hobbs, 1975a, 1975b, 1975c). Preceding this project, the topic of labeling had been widely debated in varied arenas. The professional literature contained exchanges (e.g., Gordon, 1975; Guskin, 1974; MacMillan, Jones, & Aloia, 1974; Mercer, 1973a; Rowitz, 1974) on labeling; it was a major emphasis in litigation where challenges to the classification system were made. (See Diana, Note 1; Larry P., Note 2.) Furthermore, educational labeling was to receive serious consideration in the drafting of legislation affecting the education of handicapped children at the state (e.g., A master plan for special education in California, Note 3) and federal level (e.g., PL 94-142, Note 4). Attention to how children are labeled in the schools derives in part from, first, the need to classify the students for various purposes and thus to assign names to the classified groups; secondly, the necessarily nonaverage characteristics of some groups; and thirdly the natural tendency to associate people with the name of the group of which they are members. The problem of labels became particularly acute in the late 1960s and the 1970s with the several class action lawsuits in which minority children were said to have been placed in stigmatizing classes for the mentally retarded on the basis of culturally biased tests. The impact of a formally assigned label upon these children was a component of the litigation, as we shall demonstrate below.