Provided for Developmental Disabilities Councils is a resource handbook on planning orientation training for council members. The material, including three major presentations on orientation planning, advocacy, and orientation principles, is explained to be drawn from three 1975 regional conferences. Among training techniques analyzed are use of a…

Outlined in the workbook are workshops designed for training front-line staff in writing individualized client plans for developmentally disabled persons. It is noted that workshops are taught by audio tape along with an associate instructor in small groups of four to eight individuals. Stressed are four basic goal planning strategies: involving…

Presented is a model of a graduate course for students from a variety of disciplines on human sexuality and the developmentally disabled. Course objectives are said to include competencies in designing and administering programs to foster appropriate sexual behavior and in assisting parents to deal with their children's sexuality. Seven resources…

Parents of 24 developmentally delayed infants provided their children with sequential experiences intended to foster the development of the object construct. (Author/SBH)

In a replication and extension of earlier studies by Hermelin and O'Connor, language recoding abilities in autistic, retarded, and normal children, matched for mental age and digit span, were compared in a verbal recall task. Results suggest that any handicaps in task performance by autistic children may be developmental. (Editor/RK)

Available from: American Association for the Education of the Severely/Profoundly Handicapped, 1600 West Armory Way, Seattle, Washington 98119.

This study sought to determine if the nature of disability (visual, motor, or both) could be diagnosed for children with visual-motor integration disabilities and to determine methods by which appropriate diagnoses could be made. Results were seen as supporting the existence of semiautonomous visual and motor systems. (Author)

Families having the extraordinary caretaking demands of a developmentally delayed child are at risk for added stress, social isolation, and reduced feelings of autonomy. Stress-coping theories relevant to these families are reviewed, and specific social work roles are recommended for maintaining and developing "normalized" family resoures.…

The Saginaw Valley (Michigan) Special Needs Clinic serves visually impaired children and adults, multiply impaired low vision persons, and developmentally disabled persons with vision problems and is based on a client-centered concept involving health professionals, rehabilitation specialists, special educators, consumers, and social agency…

Examines 24 mother/impaired infant dyads to study the quality of interaction using the Ainsworth-Wittig attachment paradigm. Measures of general development and degree of child impairment significantly differentiated "classifiability" of attachment in the Ainsworth scheme. Infants rated higher on a social responsiveness measure were more…

A diary study, in which observers recorded occurrences of vocal communications of a severely developmentally-delayed six-year-old, provided a scheme for categorizing and analyzing the vocalizations (into such areas as semantic, communicative, and phonological usage) and establishing a pattern of word development and possible interventions. (CB)

Contrasts effects of developmental characteristics of peer interaction partners on three preadolescent students with severe developmental disabilities observed while playing with (1) children of similar age and comparable diagnosis, (2) nondisabled children of similar age, and (3) chronologically younger but developmentally similar nondisabled…

Discusses "conundrum kids," who are intelligent and talented, but struggle and often fail because their learning styles and developmental timetables do not match the materials, methods, or sequences of a standard curriculum. Shows how one student with receptive language problems was helped by language therapy and alternative teaching…

Open-ended questions of college students (N=60) indicated students clearly differentiated between the mentally retarded and mentally ill. Mental retardation was characterized by physical stigmata, brain damage, developmental delays, and cognitive deficits; mental illness by emotional lability due to environmental, hereditary, or mixed factors.…