Does Retardation Mean Dumb? Children's Perceptions of the Nature, Cause, and Course of Mental Retardation

Abstract

The question raised in this paper is the extent to which third graders' thinking about mental retardation resembles their understanding of related terms, particulary smart-dumb and crazy. Based on developmental considerations, the expectation was that mental retardation, as well as the other qualities, would be defined as a set of behaviors rather than a trait, with cause and course attributed to effort, not ability. If so, children's ideas would depart from the adult consensus, which views retardation as biologically caused and irreversible. In fact, the interpretation of retardation was discrepant from the perception of smart/dumb and

Typically Developing Children's Interactions with Peers with Disabilities

“…Many mothers and children focused on the equipment and talked about what it would be like to use a wheelchair instead of walking, or to use a brace in order to stand up, and then went on to talk about other aspects of this physical disability. These findings are consistent with research (see Conant & Budoff, 1983;Goodman, 1989) that suggests that preschool children have difficulty understanding abstract disabilities that do not include salient visual cues.…”

“…Recent research suggests that children's attitudes toward people with disabilities develop during the preschool and early elementary years. Although some research suggests that many children have acquired negative attitudes about people with disabilities by third or fourth grade (Goodman, 1989), others have reported that preschool children in inclusive classes hold generally positive attitudes toward people with physical disabilities (Diamond, Hestenes, Carpenter, & Innes, 1997). Because cognitions or beliefs are an important component of one's attitudes toward others, these results suggest that the early childhood years may be a particularly fruitful time for teaching children about the diversity associated with disabilities.…”

Developmental differences in understanding the causes, controllability and chronicity of disabilities

“…Children's judgements about the controllability and chronicity of the disability were coded as 'yes' , 'no' , 'maybe' or 'don't know' and were given numerical codes (1 = yes, 2 = no, 3 = maybe, 4 = don't know). Explanations regarding controllability and chronicity were adapted from Goodman (1989) with the addition of two more categories used to capture responses: (1) un-codable and (2) superficial external descriptions (see Table 3). The inter-rater reliability coefficient was 0.81.…”

“…By 11 years, children understand that SLD cannot be changed and that medical intervention is limited. Similarly, Goodman (1989) found that only a third of 9-year-olds believed learning disabilities were curable. By middle childhood, children appreciate the chronicity and uncontrollability of learning difficulties, paralleling interesting work on children's intuitions about the controllability of mental states (Wellman & Hickling 1994;Flavell & Green 1999).…”

The development of children’s ideas about others’ difficulties in learning

“…-and hence to project that Tamsin would be that way (for example, 'happy', 'friendly' or 'naughty') in diverse situations. Goodman (1989) tested whether children (9 year-olds) regarded 'mental retardation' as a set of behaviours (like 'being smart/dumb') or as a trait (that is, enduring and causal). There are considerable methodological and ethical problems with this study as children's views were assessed using vignettes about hypothetical children and situations and, arguably, negative stereotypes were encouraged.…”