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A study of cognitive development and behavior problems in mentally retarded children
Author(s) -
HASHINO KENICHI,
IIDA JUNZO,
IWASAKA HIDEMI,
ITO NAOTO,
SAKIYAMA SHINOBU,
KITERA KATSUKI,
MATSUMOTO HIROFUMI,
TSUJIMOTO HIROKAZU,
IKAWA GENRO,
KISHIMOTO TOSHIFUMI
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
psychiatry and clinical neurosciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1440-1819
pISSN - 1323-1316
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-1819.1997.tb02908.x
Subject(s) - psychology , imitation , cognition , developmental psychology , cognitive development , language development , comprehension , autism , cognitive psychology , psychiatry , social psychology , linguistics , philosophy
Cognitive development in seventy‐one mentally retarded children (19 autistic, 52 non‐autistic; aged 7–19 years) from a school for handicapped children was studied, using Ohta's scale for evaluating cognitive development level based on language comprehension (Ohta's stage), and other developmental scales. Behavior problems were also examined. The present study reports on the utility of Ohta's stage in non‐autistic children, and the relationship between cognitive development level and behavior problems in mentally retarded children. In non‐autistic children, there were temporal correlations between Ohta's stage and other development scales (a standard developmental test, speech development, symbolic play development, imitation development), suggesting that in non‐autistic children as well, Ohta's stage may serve well as a scale for cognitive development, and reflect symbolic representational functioning. In non‐autistic children, most behavior problems in feeding, elimination and sleeping, hyperkinesis, hypokinesis, stereotyped behaviors, self‐injurious behavior and licking were closely associated with cognitive development level, and were more often noted in children of lower cognitive development level rather than only in the severely mentally retarded children. Some behavior problems may often occur in the sensorimotor period and hardly occur in the symbolic representational period.