Richard M. Gargiulo

Early Childhood Special Education in the People's Republic of China

Services for young children with special needs are a relatively recent phenomenon in the Peoples Republic of China. Approximately 2.46 million children under the age of six are thought to exhibit some type of disability. As a socially and economically developing nation, China is confronted with the monumental task of providing early intervention to this rapidly growing segment of its population. Issues confronting education officials include, among others, the integration of typical and atypical preschoolers, a critical shortage of appropriately trained professionals, and the lack of sufficient numbers of early childhood special education programs. Collaborative planning holds promise for improvement.

Parental Feelings: The Forgotten Component When Working with Parents of Handicapped Preschool Children.

(1991). Parental Feelings: The Forgotten Component When Working with Parents of Handicapped Preschool Children. Childhood Education: Vol. 67, No. 3, pp. 176-178.

Assessing Teachers' Attitude toward the Handicapped: A Methodological Investigation.

The attitude of 48 pre- and in-service regular and special educators toward teaching the special needs pupil was assessed physiologically via changes in pulse and skin temperature and with self-report. The self-report data were contradicted by the physiological evidence. Statistically significant differences were not observed among the four groups on the self-report measure; however, the physiological index of change in mean pulse rate indicated that preservice regular and special educators, in comparison to experienced teachers, perceived teaching the handicapped child to be significantly more stressful. The lack of agreement between the two assessment procedures was interpreted as suggesting that one should consider cautiously the results of investigations that assess attitude toward the handicapped only by means of self-report.

Special education reform in the Czech Republic

ABSTRACT In the past few years, special education services in the Czech Republic have undergone significant reform. These reform activities largely reflect a change in attitudes and beliefs about people with disabilities. A variety of strategies have been initiated in an attempt to improve the quality of life for all Czechs with special needs. Representative efforts include a policy of normalization, the integration of students with special needs into regular classrooms and new models for training special educators. Although progress is slow, and subject to some resistance, an era of change has begun. The benefactors of this process are the 1.2 million Czech citizens with disabilities.

Perspectives on mental retardation in Czechoslovakia

Abstract Mental retardation is a worldwide phenomenon. Consequently, practitioners and scientists from many countries are concerned about this cross‐cultural social issue. This article presents to the international community an overview and analysis of selected topics and trends affecting children and adults with mental retardation in the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic.

Learned helplessness in reflective and impulsive mentally retarded and nonretarded children

Forty-four educable mentally retarded and 44 nonretarded children of equivalent mental age were assessed with the Intellectural Achievement Responsibility (IAR) questionnaire. The students’ attributions on the IAR identified 35 mildly retarded and 36 nonretarded subjects who could be categorized as helpless or as mastery oriented. The retarded learners were significantly more helpless than were their nonretarded peers. The cognitive disposition of these 71 individuals was determined via Kagan’s Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT). No difference was observed in the cognitive style of retarded and that of nonretarded pupils, nor did reflective and impulsive subjects perform significantly differently on any of the four indices of helplessness. MFFT error and latency scores were not significantly correlated with measures of helplessness. The findings were interpreted as suggesting (1) that it is unlikely that cognitive disposition affects learned helplessness, and (2) the importance of environmental considerations in explaining the phenomenon of learned helplessness in mildly retarded learners.