The general education curriculum comprises more than just the academic courses students take. The wide range of extracurricular clubs, sports teams, performing arts programs, student government positions, career development activities, service-learning projects, and other school-sponsored activities offered in middle and high schools provide a…

Children with mental retardation and multiple handicaps can effectively participate in play activities and games, but the experience must be structured for them. Techniques for organizing play activities involving handicapped and nonhandicapped children are offered. Examples of singles play, rotation play, and associative play are described. (JDD)

This article introduces this special issue focused on application of guidelines based on the consensus of experts to the treatment of psychiatric and behavioral problems in persons with mental retardation. It explains the method of developing the guidelines, the limitations and advantages of the guidelines, and the organization of the guidelines.…

The collection of papers by Swedish special educators, addresses approaches to helping mentally retarded and multiply handicapped people communicate. The papers are written by psychologists, educators, speech therapists, music instructors, and researchers and focus on the following topics: the context of communication (Mats Granlund), early…

The study with three blind and mentally retarded adults with additional disabilities found that general case simulation instruction in housekeeping skills led to generalization to untrained settings. Degree of generalization was inversely related to the severity and complexity of participant disability. (Author/DB)

The use of nonspeech symbol sets (including manual signs and Blyssymbols) in language intervention with mentally retarded students is discussed. The selection and use of aided or unaided nonspeech symbol sets are considered, along with cognitive, sociocommunicative, technological, and motoric factors. (CL)

Describes the work of the South Dakota Very Special Arts Festivals project to select creative media production activities and modify them to meet the needs of the mentally retarded or multiply handicapped festival participants. (CMV)

The article reviews the use and limitations of medical and behavioral approaches (restraints, shock, drugs, punishment and aversive stimulation, reinforcement of incompatible behaviors, and overcorrection) to reduce self injury in visually impaired, mentally retarded persons. Legal and ethical considerations are pointed out. (Author/CL)

An introduction to the special section on dual diagnosis comments on the prevalence of dual diagnosis. A study is then reported in which 205 people with mental retardation were administered the Reiss Screen for Maladaptive Behavior. Fifty-nine subjects were then evaluated by clinical psychologists, and a dual diagnosis rate of 39 percent was…

The Psychopathology Instrument for Mentally Retarded Adults was used to diagnose 163 mentally retarded institutionalized adults according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-III axis 1 categories. Nine factors were extracted which contained 49.3 percent of the data variance and categorized correctly 69.3 percent of the cases. Factors included…

The second in seven sets of guidelines based on the consensus of experts in the treatment of psychiatric and behavioral problems in mental retardation (MR) focuses on informed consent. Guidelines cover underlying concepts, usual components, informed consent as a process, information to include, what to provide, when to obtain informed consent, and…

The sixth in seven sets of guidelines based on expert consensus in the treatment of psychiatric and behavioral problems in mental retardation (MR) focuses on managing inadequate response to initial medication treatment. Guidelines cover recommended steps before changing the medication regimen and selecting the next medication or adjunctive…

Discusses the potential uses of literature with people with severe and profound learning disabilities and describes a series of multisensory interactive drama games re-telling the story of "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. (Author/DB)

Distributions of psychiatric classifications among 42,479 persons with mental retardation were reviewed to determine relative rates of disorders for persons with both mental retardation and mental disorder. Analyses indicated that rates of reported schizophrenic and psychotic disorders were generally higher than expected relative to rates of other…