Intellectual Disability

Annotation of Toni Morrison, "Recitatif"

by Martha Stoddard Holmes

I Disturbi di attenzione con o senza iperattività

by Maurizio Bertollo

Nunkoosing, K & Haydon-Laurelut, M (2012) Intellectual Disability Trouble. In: Goodley, D., Hughes, B., & Davis, L. Disability and social theory: new developments and directions. Palgrave Macmillan: London

by Mark Haydon - Laurelut

The total institution was not simply the place where people with intellectual disabilities used to live and work. It... more The total institution was not simply the place where people with intellectual disabilities used to live and work. It was also the place of work for several professions, such as physicians, psychologists, nurses, social workers, speech and language therapists and others engaged in regulating the lives of disabled people. The closure of institutions and there replacement with the group home as one of the places where men and women with intellectual disabilities live still involve these processionals in processes that construct disability. In the context of intellectual disabilities, these professions operate in a collective called the Community Learning Disability Team (CLDT). Staff in the group home can call on the CLDT to assist them to manage men and women with intellectual disabilities deemed to be in need of expert help. They do so by means of writing referrals in which they describe the troublesome actions, often acts of resistance, of the man or woman with learning disabilities. These referrals link the group homes with external agents of control and are also important sources of data about what is going on in the lives of people with intellectual disabilities and the people who support them in group homes. In this chapter we draw upon the insights of Erving Goffman and Michel Foucault to make sense of some aspects of the lives of men and women with intellectual disabilities who live in group homes. We have previously examined referrals to a CLDT to explore discourses of challenging behaviour in these texts. Below are two of the referrals we studied about two men, Dennis and Harry. These are taken from actual referrals made to a CLDT; we will also make reference to 3 other persons, Zoë, Lucy and John (these names are all pseudonyms) who were referred. We use these referrals to illustrate the application of Goffman’s and Foucault’s insights to group homes for men and women with intellectual disabilities. Methodologically our work with these texts is guided by Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 2001). CDA “is critical in the sense that it aims to show non-obvious ways in which language is involved in social relations of power and domination, and in ideology. It is a resource which can be used in combination with others for researching change in contemporary social life” (Fairclough 2001:229). CDA is a resistant and disruptive reading practice aimed at revealing how assumptions operate to serve vested interests. Our position is also informed by critical and social constructionist perspectives of intellectual disability and the lives of people who have been given this label (Goodley 1996; Rapley 2004; Roets 2009; Swain, French, Barnes, & Thomas 2004).

Child and Adult Witnesses With Intellectual Disability: The Importance of Suggestibility

by Lucy Henry

Gudjonsson, G.H. & Henry, L.A. (2003). Child and adult witnesses with intellectual disability: The importance of suggestibility. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 8, 241-252.

Relationships Between Working Memory, Expressive Vocabulary and Arithmetical Reasoning In Children With and Without Intellectual Disabilities.

by Lucy Henry

Henry, L.A. & MacLean, M. (2003). Relationships between working memory, expressive vocabulary and arithmetical reasoning in children with and without intellectual disabilities. Educational and Child Psychology, 20, 51-64.

Working Memory Performance In Children With and Without Intellectual Disabilities

by Lucy Henry

Henry, L.A. & MacLean, M. (2002). Working memory performance in children with and without intellectual disabilities. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 107, 421-432.

Performance on working memory span tasks by children with intellectual disabilities ages 11 to 12 was compared to that... more Performance on working memory span tasks by children with intellectual disabilities ages 11 to 12 was compared to that of CA- and MA-matched controls. Limited evidence was available to support a ‘‘difference’’ position, whereby the intellectual disabilities group obtained lower scores than both the CA and MA groups. Some evidence was found for the ‘‘developmental’’ position, whereby the intellectual disabilities group performed at the same level as the MA group but more poorly than the CA-matched group. Finally, some evidence supported an unconventional ‘‘difference’’ account; children in the intellectual disabilities group performed better than the MA group, although still not as well as the CA-matched group. Results were interpreted with reference to the role of strategies in working memory performance.

Eyewitness Memory, Suggestibility, and Repeated Recall Sessions In Children With Mild and Moderate Intellectual Disabilities

by Lucy Henry

Henry, L.A. & Gudjonsson, G.H. (2003). Eyewitness memory, suggestibility and repeated recall sessions in children with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities. Law and Human Behavior, 27, 481-505.

This study of eyewitness memory questioned children with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities (ID) about a live... more This study of eyewitness memory questioned children with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities (ID) about a live staged event 1 day later and, again, 2 weeks later. Children with mild ID performed as well as typically-developing children of the same
age in response to free recall instructions, and they were just as able as same age peers to resist misleading questions. However, they performed more poorly on general questions,
probing for further information after free recall. The children with mild ID also changed their responses to specific questions more often in the repeated interview. The group of children with moderate ID showed markedly lower performance than peers of
the same age on nearly every type of eyewitness memory question. Comparisons of the children with ID to mental age-matched peers indicated that performance was similar,
although children with ID gave more information in response to free recall instructions and changed their answers in the repeated interview more often. Standardized measures of verbal memory (TOMAL) and suggestibility (Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale) were modest to moderate predictors of eyewitness memory performance.

Eyewitness Memory and Suggestibility In Children With Mental Retardation

by Lucy Henry

Henry, L.A. & Gudjonsson, G.H. (1999). Eyewitness memory and suggestibility in children with mental retardation. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 104, 491-508.

How Does the Severity of a Learning Disability Affect Working Memory Performance?

by Lucy Henry

Henry, L.A. (2001). How does the severity of a learning disability affect working memory performance? Memory, 9, 233-247.

Working Memory In Children With Autism and With Moderate Learning Difficulties

by Lucy Henry

Russell, J., Jarrold, C. & Henry, L. (1996). Working memory in children with autism and with moderate learning difficulties. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 37, 673-686.

Henry, L.A. & Winfield, J. (2010). Working memory and educational achievement in children with intellectual disabilities. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 54:4, 354-365.

by Lucy Henry

Background There is little previous research examining whether measures of working memory are related to educational... more Background There is little previous research examining whether measures of working memory are related to educational achievement in children with intellectual disabilities (ID).

Methods A battery of working memory and achievement measures was administered to 11- to 12-year-old children with ID; younger typically developing children of comparable mental age were also assessed.

Results The working memory measures that assessed phonological short-term memory (PSTM) accounted for the most variance in reading and spelling in children with ID, whereas the working memory measures that assessed central executiveloaded working memory (CELWM) accounted for the most variance in number skills.These relationships were broadly similar among typically developing children.

Conclusions Compensatory strategies for weak PSTM may help to improve reading and spelling skills in children with ID, whereas reducing CELWM loads may be more helpful in aiding their number skills.

Keywords working memory, educational achievement, intellectual disabilities, children

Henry, L.A. (2010). The episodic buffer in children with intellectual disabilities: An exploratory study. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 31, 1609-1614.

by Lucy Henry

Executive functions in individuals with intellectual disability

by Lucy Henry

Danielsson, H., Henry, L., Rönnberg, J. & Nilsson, L-G. (2010). Executive functions in individuals with intellectual disability.  Research in Developmental Disabilities, 31, 1299-1304.

The aim of the present study was to investigate executive functions in adults with intellectual disability, and... more The aim of the present study was to investigate executive functions in adults with intellectual disability, and compare them to a closely matched control group longitudinally for 5 years. In the Betula database, a group of adults with intellectual disability (ID, n=46) was defined from measures of verbal and nonverbal IQ. A control group, with two people for every person with intellectual disability (n=92), was chosen by matching on the following criterion in order of priority: IQ higher than 85, age, sex, sample, level of education, and years of education. 3 types of tasks of executive functions were included on 2 occasions, with 5 years between testing sessions: The Tower of Hanoi, executively loaded dual task versions of word recall, and verbal fluency. Adults with ID showed significant impairments on verbal fluency and on the executively loaded dual task word recall task (at encoding but not at recall). There were no group differences on the Tower of Hanoi. No significant differences between the 2 test occasions were found. The results are interpreted in terms of individuals with ID having problems with speed of accessing lexical items and difficulties with working memory-related executive control at encoding, which includes shifting between tasks. There are, however, not necessarily problems with inhibition. The dual task results additionally imply that the adults with intellectual disability were more sensitive to strategy interruptions at encoding, but that dividing attention at recall did not have such detrimental effects.

Short-Term Memory Coding In Children With Intellectual Disabilities

by Lucy Henry

Henry, L.A. (2008). Short-term memory coding in children with intellectual disabilities. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 113 187-200.

To examine visual and verbal coding strategies, I asked children with intellectual disabilities and peers matched for... more To examine visual and verbal coding strategies, I asked children with intellectual disabilities and peers matched for MA and CA to perform picture memory span tasks with phonologically similar, visually similar, long, or nonsimilar named items. The CA group showedffects consistent with advanced verbal memory coding (phonological similarity and word length effects). Neither the intellectual disabilities nor MA groups showed evidence for memory coding strategies. However, children in these groups with MAs above 6 years showed significant visual similarity and word length effects, broadly consistent with an intermediate stage of dual visual and verbal coding. These results suggest that developmental progressions in memory coding strategies are independent of intellectual disabilities status and consistent with MA.

Individual and Developmental Differences In Eyewitness Recall and Suggestibility In Children With Intellectual Disabilities

by Lucy Henry

Henry, L.A. & Gudjonsson, G.H. (2007). Individual and developmental differences in eyewitness memory and suggestibility in children with intellectual disabilities. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21, 361-381.

This study examined two key issues: (1) whether there were developmental improvements in eyewitness memory performance... more This study examined two key issues: (1) whether there were developmental improvements in eyewitness memory performance for children with intellectual disabilities (ID); and (2) whether standardised measures of cognitive ability and suggestibility would relate to eyewitness recall and suggestibility. Children with ID and age-matched controls (ages 8/9 and 12 years) watched a video of a crime and were asked a range of open-ended and specific questions about the event in a subsequent interview. Free recall increased between the two age levels for children with and without ID, but at a faster rate for those without ID. For other question types, differences in performance between children with and without ID were far more marked than age differences. Standardised measures of interrogative suggestibility (Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale, GSS), verbal IQ, non-verbal IQ, mental age and speed of information processing were related to eyewitness performance. In particular, higher eyewitness recall scores (free recall, non-leading specific questions) were related to higher scores on the standardised GSS free recall measure; and higher eyewitness suggestibility scores were related to higher scores on the standardised GSS suggestibility measures. Mental age was a better predictor of performance on a range of eyewitness memory question types than verbal or nonverbal IQ; and speed of information processing showed some relationships with eyewitness performance.

The Effects of Memory Trace Strength on Eyewitness Recall In Children With and Without Intellectual Disabilities

by Lucy Henry

Henry, L.A. & Gudjonsson, G.H. (2004). The effects of memory trace strength on eyewitness recall in children with and without intellectual disabilities. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 89, 53-71.

Children with mild moderate intellectual disabilities (ID) were compared with typically developing peers of the same... more Children with mild moderate intellectual disabilities (ID) were compared with typically developing peers of the same chronological age (CA) on an eyewitness memory task in which
memory trace strength was manipulated to examine whether increased memory trace strength would benefit those with ID more than those without ID. No evidence was found for this claim or for the notion that different mechanisms are implicated in memory processes for children with ID versus CA controls. Fuzzy-trace theory was also used to contrast question types that
probed verbatim memory versus gist memory. Manipulations of trace strength, when used with immediate recall (to reduce the impact of decay), were predicted to improve verbatim memory more than gist memory. The results broadly supported the predictions. Performance was not improved in the stronger trace strength condition on measures of recall that tapped
gist memory (e.g., open-ended recall), whereas performance was signifcantly better in the stronger trace strength condition on two of the three measures of recall that tapped verbatim
memory (i.e., closed misleading questions, open-ended speciWc questions). Differences in performance between the groups were quite marked on several question types, supporting previous findings that those with ID have certain vulnerabilities as potential witnesses compared with peers of the same CA.

Patients' rights, caregivers' dilemmas

by Reuben Wong

Published in 'CENTRES' (Centre for Biomedical Ethics, NUS) newsletter, 11, March 2012, pp.8-9. (From Training Session for Kandang Kerbau Hospital “Management of Menstrual Problem for young female patient with intellectual disability” workshop, 24 November 2011).

Media Review: Where's Molly?

by Keri Cameron

Cameron, K. (2011). Media Review: Where's Molly? Journal on Developmental Disabilities, 17(2), 83-86.

Mental ill-health in adults with learning disabilities

by kiran azam

Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for anxiety and depression in adults with mild intellectual disabilities (ID): a pilot randomised controlled trial

by kiran azam