Friendships and Social Behavior

Landesman-Dwyer, Sharon; Berkson, Gershon

doi:10.1007/978-1-4684-4610-4_7

Cited by 13 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Some remarks conveyed fears of physical decline and loss of social contacts because of retirement; others expressed a positive anticipation of more leisure time. More research is needed on age-related social changes experienced or anticipated by mentally retarded persons to extend the existing literature on friendship patterns and informal social support networks (Berkson & Romer, 1980;Krauss & Erickson, 1988;Landesman-Dwyer & Berkson, 1984).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Perceptions of Old Age Among a Sample of Aging Mentally Retarded Persons

1989

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This study presents a typology of perceptions of old age based on a sample of 47 aging mentally retarded persons. Using data collected through in-person interviews, a content analysis yielded six general types of responses to the question, "What does getting old mean to you?" Next, we conducted three analyses investigating the relation of respondents'perceptions of aging to specific sample member characteristics. Persons who were currently working were more likely to anticipate changes in their social lives than were persons who were not employed. Further, workrelated changes were more likely to be anticipated by persons living in communitybased settings than those in an institutional setting, and by respondents who were age 60 or younger than by persons older than 60. Finally, most of the sample members defined the age of an older person as being more advanced than their current age. We discuss the programmatic, research, and policy implications of the study.As is true among the general population, there has been a significant increase in the longevity of persons with mental retardation over the last several decades.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Perceptions of Old Age Among a Sample of Aging Mentally Retarded Persons

1989

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“…However, interpreting Looking solely in relation to job demands may be questionable. Looking may serve as a form of social interaction (Landesman-Dwyer & Berkson, 1984), and high rates of Looking in those with mild and moderate handicaps may have been related to low rates of talking and minimal peer assistance.…”

Section: Differences Among Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Work Behavior of Employees with and without Handicaps

Glascoe

Levy

1987

Career Development for Exceptional Individuals

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Efforts to determine work and social skills related to job success have followed one of three approaches (Langford, 1982): (a) establishing correlations between personality and demographic variables and work success (Bronner, 1933;Greenspan, 1979;Madison, 1964), (b) obtaining lists from employers and supervisors of desirable employee behavior (Langford & Salzburg, 1982), and (c) placing people with handicaps in competitive jobs and offering individualized intervention and training (Levy, 1978;Mithaug, 1978;Rusch, 1979;Wehman, Hill, & Koehler, 1980). Some of the problems with each of these methods include (a) globally defined variables, (b) lack of correlations between variables and job success, (c) inconsistency in variables across employers, settings, and so forth, and (d) intervention of such specificity that educators had difficulty generalizing findings across individuals and settings. In all approaches, little guidance was offered for decisions on which skills to train, which behaviors to increase or diminish, and so forth. For example, Rusch and Mithaug's (1980) and Wehman's (1981) vocational training programs, while otherwise comprehensive and systematic, include only limited assessment of competitive job requirements, and they do not provide much direction for prioritizing training objectives. This difficulty leaves teachers and supervisors of people without handicaps without definitive guidelines for placement decisions or for training work-related skills.The larger question is, in fact, what is desirable work behavior. An initial answer to this question was supplied by Levy (1978), who attempted to gain a better understanding of behaviors of retarded and nonretarded workers on the job. His study provided a basic methodology for comparing trainees with competitive employment requirements. Using a variety of observational techniques, he identified several different on/off-task behaviors and used them to evaluate the differences among workers in sheltered and competitive settings. The results indicated that workers both with handicaps and without engaged in the same types of on-and off-task behaviors but that the frequency and duration differed. These conclusions shed light on desirable work behaviors, illustrated critical differences between employees with handicaps and those without, and suggested objectives for vocational interventions.Because Levy's study involved a small sample, further research with more subjects in different sheltered and competitive settings seemed warranted, as did expansion of the behavioral categories. We (Levy & lascoe, 1986) expanded and replicated Levy's (1978) study. We found that observational techniques could be used to measure different vocational tasks, in different work sites, and with employees of differing levels of ability and expertise. This study generated extensive descriptive data. These observations and findings are presented below.

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“…The mental handicap literature has several significant articles on aspects of the physical environment in which people with mental handicap live. It seems that there is a definite relationship between the quality of living environment and the degree to which residents benefit from c o m m u n i t y -1 iv i n g s k i 11 s t r a i n i n g programmes (Gunzburg, 1974;Clarke, Sinclair, and Tizard, 1975;Landesman-Dwyer, and Berkson, 1984;Jacobson, Schwartz, and Janicki, 1984).…”

Section: The Need To Adapt and Modernisementioning

confidence: 99%