Harvey N. Switzky

A National Survey of High School Students' Environmental Knowledge

Abstract The current environmental knowledge base in a national probability sample of American high school students was assessed. The analysis revealed low levels of environmental knowledge. A majority of the students were able to recognize basic facts concerning environmental problems; however, most students could not apply their knowledge to comprehend the consequences or potential solutions related to the problems. Students also demonstrated extremely little growth in environmental knowledge from 10th grade to 12th grade. Educational implications and recommendations are discussed.

Attitudinal and Demographic Predictors of Breast-Feeding and Bottle-Feeding Behavior by Mothers of Six-Week-Old Infants

A Feeding Questionnaire and an Inventory of Attitudes on Family Life and Children derived from scales of the Schaefer and Bell (1958) Parental Attitude Research Instrument (PARI) were returned by 41 breastfeeding and 42 bottle-feeding mothers of 6-wk.-old infants to see what attitudinal and demographic variables differentiate middle-income women who breastfeed. Breast-feeding mothers had more years of college, more breast-feeding friends, and perceived husbands as more supportive of their mode of feeding than the bottle-feeding mothers. Scores on Marital Conflict and Acceleration of Development Scales of the PARI showed significant differences. Bottle-feeding mothers perceived their marriages as having more conflict and favored hastening the development of their infants more than did breast-feeding mothers. On the oven and covert attitude scales toward breast-feeding, breast-feeding mothers favored breast-feeding, and bottle-feeding mothers were against breastfeeding.

Research on Community Residential Alternatives for the Mentally Retarded

Publisher Summary Negative attitudes toward the mentally retarded and facilities for them exist, as evidenced by attitude surveys and as witnessed by the expediences of residential facilities. This chapter presents some community residential alternatives for the mentally retarded. It provides an outline of the history of the institutionalization movement. The chapter also describes the status of the empirical knowledge and the ideological undergirding of the movement from publicly supported residential facilities (PRF) toward the community residential facilities (CRF). The research relating to the successful placement of the retarded in the community is also reviewed and critiqued. Research studies on deinstitutionalization have greater methodological and political challenges than that ordinarily reported issues in the area are amenable to empirical investigation. The investigation, more than most, has practical applications that are likely to influence public policy towards the mentally retarded.

Intrinsic Motivation and Behavior Effectiveness in Retarded Persons

Publisher Summary This chapter examines the relationships between “task intrinsic motivation,” and the behavior effectiveness of mentally retarded persons within the context of a historical view of research on personality variables and mental retardation. Individual differences in motivational orientation have been shown to be reliably measurable down to mental age (MA) 3 years, to appear in mentally retarded and nonretarded persons, to be correlated with chronological age, mental age, social class, and IQ, and to be associated with effectiveness of laboratory learning and levels of school achievement. There are strong indications that such individual differences are also associated with mental health, work satisfaction, and social adjustment. Behavioral effectiveness is achieved most readily when incentives are matched to individual differences in motivational orientation. Relatively intrinsically motivated persons work harder and longer, choose higher performance goals, and set leaner schedules of reinforcement for themselves than do relatively extrinsically motivated persons. Retarded persons who are relatively more intrinsically motivated are capable of more self-regulating behavior and may be able to function more effectively in independent living situations than will extrinsically motivated persons of comparable age, sex, and IQ. There are suggestions that motivational orientation may be modifiable with relatively intense, prolonged, and appropriate treatment.

Intelligence involves risk-awareness and intellectual disability involves risk-unawareness: implications of a theory of common sense.

Abstract Survival in the everyday world (in both social and practical functioning) depends on ones ability to recognise and avoid going down the worst possible path, especially when doing so places one at risk of death, injury, or social disaster. Most people possess “common sense” (the ability to recognise obvious risk) but some people lack that ability and thus are at high risk of engaging in “foolish” (i.e., risk-unaware) action. People who have a cognitive impairment are much less able to recognise and avoid risk, and this is what causes them to be seen as needing protection and support. In this paper, we argue that the answer to the question “What is intellectual disability (ID)?” is more likely to come from the question “What is unintelligent behavior?” than “What is intelligence?” The answer which comes from such a question is that “ID is a common sense deficit disorder characterised by unawareness of obvious social and practical risk.” Several implications of this answer are explored for the field of intellectual disability. These implications are explored primarily for adults who may have ID, given that the inspiration for this paper came from the way existing ID definitions are applied or misapplied in the US adult criminal justice system.

Intrinsic Motivation and Learning Performance Implications for Individual Educational Programming for Learners with Mild Handicaps

The implications of current theories of intrinsic motivation for educational practices for learners with mild handicaps are reviewed. Conceptions of intrinsic motivation are presented and methods of identifying individual differences in motivational orientation are identified. The interaction of classroom demand environments, the effects of teacher reward and punishment, and individual differences in intrinsic motivation in learners with mild handicaps is discussed in relation to behavioral effectiveness and to academic performance.

Modification of Impulsivity: Implications for Improved Efficiency in Learning for Exceptional Children

Recent research on cognitive tempo, specifically the reflection-impulsivity dimension, has indicated that an impulsive problem-solving approach is not conducive to the development of adaptive academic and social skills. Since many exceptional children are described as cognitively impulsive, knowledge of the techniques to attenuate impulsivity is important to the teachers of such children. Experimental modification procedures, such as required delay, direct instruction, self-verbalization, differentiation training, modeling, and reinforcement, are reviewed and their respective teaching implications identified. While specific teaching strategies are noted, the authors caution that applied classroom research is necessary in order to ascertain which techniques are valid for classroom use.

Successful Weight Loss Techniques with Mentally Retarded Children and Youth

This article describes obesity and its treatment in mentally retarded children and youth. The major cause of obesity and commonly associated syndromes in the retarded are discussed. Traditional treatment approaches, such as psychotherapy, caloric restriction, increased activity, and anorexiant drugs are discussed. Contemporary behavioral approaches to the obese retarded population are reviewed. Implications for practitioners beginning a weight control program are delineated.

An Indirect Technique for Establishing Preferences for Categories of Reinforcement for Severely and Profoundly Retarded Individuals

The development of a reinforcement survey hierarchy is described for programming severely and profoundly retarded individuals. The survey identifies reinforcement preferences of severely and profoundly retarded individuals by means of an indirect categorical technique. The categorical technique views reinforcement as being educationally, environmentally, and developmentally characteristic of severely and profoundly retarded individuals. The survey is a preliminary step to more direct approaches to reinforcement, such as sampling or use of multiple reinforcements. Field data are discussed.

The Importance of Cognitive–Motivational Variables in Understanding the Outcome Performance of Persons with Mental Retardation: A Personal View from the Early Twenty‐First Century

Publisher Summary This chapter provides a history of the authors research odyssey over the past few decades on mental retardation. The chapter discusses the implications of cognitive–motivational variables in understanding the outcome performance of persons with mental retardation and allied intellectual disabilities for the field of intellectual disabilities. The implications of this simple notion—that in all human learners, including those with all sorts of intellectual disabilities, outcome performance depends on the operation of motivational operators as well as cognitive operators—for service, diagnosis, education, and training of persons with intellectual disabilities are remarkable. By increasing the motivation of persons with intellectual disabilities, outcome performance will increase, benefiting the person, her family, and society.