Biomedical subjects

R P Ferretti

Publications and source records attributed to R P Ferretti.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1996

Authenticity in learning: multimedia design projects in the social studies for students with disabilities.

Proponents of educational reform highlight the importance of creating instructional environments that encourage students' active involvement in the learning process. To be so involved, students with and without disabilities must construct knowledge, evaluate the products of their work, and engage in the design of solutions to authentic problems. We believe that these goals are especially important for students with disabilities, many of whom are passive learners who experience difficulty with the flexible use of knowledge and skills. Our analysis of the research evidence leads us to conclude that students' thinking skills and attitudes are enhanced when they collaborate in the solution of authentic problems. We view the social skills curriculum as a rich source of authentic problems that affords opportunities to promote thinking by enabling argument about controversial issues. Further, we contend that educational multimedia are potentially powerful tools for constructing knowledge, especially when used in collaborative project-based instructional environments, or multimedia design projects. We review evidence about the efficacy of multimedia design projects in promoting students' construction of knowledge, thinking, and problem solving, and discuss some potential challenges to the efficacy of this approach.

Audiovisual Aids↗

PubMed1989

Problem solving and strategy production in mentally retarded persons.

Three decades of research purportedly show that mentally retarded persons neither spontaneously produce nor generalize problem-solving strategies. These observations are often attributed to deficiencies in superordinate skills and knowledge that control or influence the use of problem-solving strategies. This review shows that mentally retarded persons are often strategic when comprehension of the task requirements is ensured, and that generalization can be obtained when instructional experience with multiple task exemplars is given. Superordinate, representational, and nonvolitional factors are implicated in the production and generalization of strategies by mentally retarded persons.

Concept Formation↗

PubMed1989

Intelligence as a correlate of children's problem solving.

Previous work on children's problem solving was extended by directly comparing the strategies of intellectually gifted, average, and mentally retarded children on 2 two-dimensional integration problems--the balance scale and inclined plane. Comparisons of the distributions of strategies for each group showed that most gifted children integrated dimensional information by addition and many average children used lexicographic strategies. Mentally retarded children relied on a single dimension of the balance scale, but they were more likely to use lexicographic strategies for the inclined plane. Possible explanations for the large number of unclassified mentally retarded children were discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1986

Are children's rule-assessment classifications invariant across instances of problem types?

Wilkening and Anderson recently criticized Siegler's rule-assessment methodology as being insufficiently diagnostic of some rules that may be used to solve tasks like the balance scale. An implication of this criticism is that the rule-assessment method may yield classifications that vary with the problems used to assess knowledge. We tested this implication by varying the size of the product difference within problem types for both the balance-scale and the inclined-plane tasks. Many children's classifications differed from problem set to problem set. Children tended to achieve more developmentally sophisticated classifications with larger product differences, and variability in classifications was attributable to greater accuracy on all problem types with larger product differences. The variability in accuracy on the simple problem types is predicted by neither Siegler's nor Wilkening and Anderson's analyses. Possible explanations for these findings were discussed.

Child↗

PubMed1985

The classification of children's knowledge: development on the balance-scale and inclined-plane tasks.

R.S. Siegler (1981, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 46 C2, Serial No. 189) has shown that performance on several Piagetian tasks is governed by similar rule structures. The purpose of the first study was to extend his analysis to the inclined-plane task, replicate his original observations about development on the balance-scale task, and determine the consistency in children's rule usage across tasks. We found that Siegler's (1981) binary decision representations adequately characterized development on these tasks, and there was fair correspondence of rule classifications across tasks. An alternative classification procedure, used to diagnose the rules of children who failed our original classification criteria, showed that most of these children's performance patterns were very similar to Siegler's rule patterns. In the second experiment, we improved the diagnosticity of our rule-assessment protocol in light of F. Wilkening and N. H. Anderson's (1982, Psychological Bulletin, 92, 215-237) criticisms, and observed that many Rule III children's predictions were associated with those of integration rules on both tasks. Despite these methodological improvements, many children, especially 5- to 7-year-olds, evidenced use of centration and lexicographic strategies, suggesting that these classifications are not simply an artifact of problem sampling. Some of the problems associated with the classification of children's knowledge are discussed.

Child↗

PubMed1982

Memorizing: a test of untrained mildly mentally retarded children's problem-solving.

Forty untrained mildly mentally retarded and 32 untrained nonretarded junior high school students were given eight trails of practice on a self-paced memory problem with lists of letters or words. For each trail a new list was presented, requiring ordered recall of terminal list items followed by ordered recall of initial items. Subgroups of solvers and nonsolvers were identified at each IQ level by a criterion of strict recall accuracy. Direct measures of mnemonic activity showed that over trails, solvers at both IQ levels increasingly fit a theoretically ideal memorization method. At neither IQ level did nonsolvers show similar inventions. On early trials, for both IQ levels, fit to the ideal method was uncorrelated with recall accuracy. On late trials fit and recall were highly correlated at each IQ level and across levels. The results support a problem-solving theory of individual differences in retarded and nonretarded children's memory performances.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1980

Stereotyped behaviour, alternative behaviour and collateral effects: a comparison of four intervention procedures.

The effects of four procedures (i.e. a mild slap to the forearm, differential reinforcement of an alternative behaviour (DRA), overcorrection plus DRA, and a mild slap plus DRA), on a sterotyped behaviour, an alternative behaviour, and collateral self-injurious behaviours of a profoundly retarded five-year-old girl were assessed in a modified multiple baseline, reversal design. A mild slap resulted in rapid suppression of target and nontarget behaviours. During DRA, a slight increase was achieved in the target behaviour. However, no suppression of the other behaviours were evidenced. Overcorrection plus DRA proved relatively ineffective both in suppressing the target stereotyped behaviours and in accelerating the alternative behaviour. The most effective procedure was mild slap plus DRA. Near zero suppression of the stereotyped behaviour was attained on the first day of implementation, collateral self-injurious behaviours were virtually eliminated, and alternative behaviour increased dramatically. There was some evidence for generalisation across trainers, settings, and time.

Behavior Therapy↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The self-management of skills by persons with mental retardation.

The transition of persons with mental retardation to less restrictive environments is often hindered by difficulties in managing their own behavior in the absence of external controls. This observation has led to an upsurge of interest in the advantages of teaching self-management skills to persons with mental retardation. This article reviews evidence about the effects of self-management training on the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of skills. The analyses show that self-management training has been useful in promoting the maintenance of behavior change first effected by external control procedures, but that a dearth of evidence and a number of methodological problems preclude convincing conclusions about its value in promoting generalization. The empirical evidence also suggests that the effectiveness of these procedures may depend upon the cognitive and linguistic abilities of the persons receiving self-management training. Finally, the design of much of the empirical research does not enable the disentanglement of the specific effects of self-management training from those arising from the concurrent application of external control procedures. Carefully controlled componential studies of the effects of self-management training and external control procedures are sorely needed.

Activities of Daily Living↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Self-management within a classroom token economy for students with learning disabilities.

Students with disabilities who are served in restrictive educational settings often display inappropriate behavior that serves to preclude their integration into the mainstream. One approach to managing difficult behavior is a levels system (Smith & Farrell, 1993), which typically consists of a hierarchy of levels in which students must meet increasingly demanding standards of behavior before advancing through the hierarchy. In the present study, two middle-school students with learning disabilities participated in a classroom-wide token economy based on a levels system. The levels system, which was used in a self-contained classroom, targeted the acquisition and maintenance of academic skills and social behaviors with the goal of integrating these students into an inclusive classroom. The two participants showed little or no progress within the levels system because of a very high rate of inappropriate verbalizations. Therefore, a self-management system that involved training on the accuracy of self-recording these verbalizations was added to the levels system for these students. In addition, the investigator discussed with these students the consequences of inappropriate behavior and socially appropriate behavioral alternatives. A multiple-baseline-across-subjects experimental design revealed that the intervention resulted in a substantive reduction in inappropriate verbalizations, as well as greater progress through the levels system. Implications of these findings for the use of self-recording within a token economy, the importance of students' accuracy of self-recording, and methodological issues are discussed.

Achievement↗