Is self disclosure by a physically handicapped proband reciprocated by the interaction partner? An experimental study of the effect of physical handicap on interaction behavior with non-handicapped interaction partners

An experimental study tested whether an able-bodied person's positive disposition toward a disabled interaction partner was effective in the amount of reciprocation given to the disabled partner's self-disclosure. Sixty female subjects were confronted with either a disabled or nondisabled conversation partner who showed either a high or a low amount of self-disclosure. We anticipated that a "sympathy" effect of disablement in the amount of the subjects' self-disclosure would result from the nondisabled partner's overcompensation. This arises from an effort to compensate the negative, stereotyped attitudes to the disabled in actual behavior toward a single, disabled person by more strongly reciprocating the self-disclosure of a disabled interaction partner compared to a nondisabled one. Results showed that, contrary to expectations, self-disclosure was equally reciprocated with both a disabled and a nondisabled partner. However, a "sympathy" effect was found in the impression judgments on the disabled partner who had shown a high amount of self-disclosure in the previous conversation. The lack of a "sympathy" effect in the amount of self-disclosure was possibly the result of (1) the reciprocation of self-disclosure not being exclusively determined by intentional control processes; and/or (2) the evaluative significance of the amount of self-disclosure not being clear to the subjects in the interaction studied. It is concluded that the efforts of the nondisabled to show an unprejudiced attitude toward a disabled interaction partner are mostly effective in other aspects of behavior than the amount of self-disclosure.     

Allocation of study time and recall by learning disabled and nondisabled children of different ages

Study time and recall by learning-disabled and nondisabled children of five different ages were examined in a task requiring recall of digits that were presented at the child's own rate. Recall increased with age and was significantly higher by nondisabled than disabled children, particularly at older ages. As additional digits of each sequence were presented, study time by 8-year-old disabled and nondisabled groups were relatively constant, increased in older disabled and nondisabled children, but increased more in older nondisabled children than older learning disabled children. Instructions in hierarchical grouping of digits increased recall by all groups to a similar degree, but the increase by younger children and learning disabled children was associated with longer study times. The results suggest that allocation of study time and recall are developmentally delayed in learning disabled children.     

The effect of increased incentive on free recall by learning-disabled and nondisabled children

Immediate free recall by learning-disabled and nondisabled children was compared under two incentive conditions. Recall of the first few words of each list by disabled children and younger nondisabled children was lower than that by older nondisabled children, and receiving a monetary reward increased early list item recall by older disabled and nondisabled learners. These findings suggest that elaborative encoding processes, such as rehearsal, are impaired in younger disabled and nondisabled children and that receiving a reward increased elaborative encoding by older children. Similar recall of the last few list items by all groups suggests that attention and immediate memory are comparable in disabled and nondisabled children of different ages. Receiving a reward increased recall of the last few list items by younger disabled and nondisabled children, suggesting that a reward increased attention, immediate memory, or both, in these groups. Because receiving a reward increased recall equally in all groups, lower motivation did not appear to be responsible for the lower recall by younger nondisabled children and learning-disabled children.     

The relationship between maternal psychiatric disorder and very young children's coping behaviors

The coping behavior of high-risk infants aged 4 to 36 months was investigated. Two groups of infants (n = 60) (mothers with and without psychiatric disorders) were rated using the Early Coping Inventory (ECI), an observational measure. Results indicated that children whose mothers had chronic psychiatric disorders demonstrated significantly less effective coping behavior on all subscales of the ECI (Sensorimotor Organization, Reactive Behavior, and Self-Initiated Behavior) and on 47 of the 48 items. The at-risk children's behavior was found to be more “situationally effective”; that is, behavior used effectively in one type of situation was not generalized to other types of situations. The greatest discrepancy between the groups was in self-initiated behavior. No significant effects of demographic variables or type or severity of psychiatric disorder were found. Implications for treatment of this high-risk group are discussed. © 1997 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Positive and negative affect in parenting disabled children

Research on parents' positive and negative affect may clarify critical aspects in the emotional impact of raising a child with disabilities, as related to stress-resistance factors such as personal coping and family climate. Parental affect (positive and negative), coping strategies (active and avoidant), and family climate (relationships, personal growth, and system maintenance) among 71 families with disabled children were compared (using MANCOVA) to parental measures of 77 families with nondisabled children, revealing significant differences. Parents of disabled children reported higher levels of negative (distressed) affect, adopted more avoidant coping strategies, and differed in their familial interrelations and the opportunities for personal growth available to them in their families. The discrepancies between the fathers' and mothers' scores in avoidant coping and in the family climate areas of personal growth and system maintenance were greater among the parents of disabled children than among the control parents. Positive and negative affect were differently predicted in the two groups of parents, highlighting the different role of coping resources and family resources in mediating stress. Implications were drawn for intervention planning and family empowerment.     

An examination of encoding and retrieval processes in reading disabled children

A choice reaction time experiment was performed in order to assess the information processing characteristics of 12-year-old reading disabled children. Eight reading disabled children were compared to a sample of nondisabled readers. The stimuli consisted of consonants presented in three memory load conditions. A Stimulus Quality manipulation was included in the design in order to assess the encoding process. The results of the research indicated that the rate of encoding differed between disabled and nondisabled readers. In addition, support for the hypothesis that disabled and nondisabled readers do not differ in terms of central processes was also obtained.     

Learning disabilities, distinctive encoding, and hemispheric resources

The purpose of this study was to isolate possible sources of learning ability differences in distinctive encoding of item-specific and relational information. Two mechanisms postulated as underlying ability group differences were attentional capacity (as inferred from the magnitude and direction of correlations between primary and secondary recall) and resource monitoring strategies (as reflected in measures of selective attention and laterality). In Experiment 1, learning disabled and nondisabled childrens' word recall was compared on dichotic listening recall tasks that included nonorienting instructions, and orienting instructions that directed children's attention toward semantic, phonemic, or structural word features. Disabled children showed lower recall and more diffuse selective attention to word features than nondisabled children. Reciprocity (negative correlations) between targeted and background words within and between ability groups was comparable, except when targeted word features were phonemically organized. Experiment 2 indicated that disabled childrens' cued recall was inferior to that of nondisabled children, even though both ability groups produced comparable symmetrical recall patterns related to ear presentations. Taken together, the results suggest that the locus of disabled childrens' distinctive encoding deficiencies is related to resource monitoring strategies during interhemispheric processing.     

Memory, acquisition, and category clustering in learning-disabled children.

In Experiment 1, single trial, immediate-free recall of learning disabled and nondisabled children was compared. The primacy effect in learning-disabled children was lower, suggesting that rehearsal or other types of elaborative encoding may be deficient in these children. In Experiment 2, acquisition of randomly presented categorical lists in a multitrial-free recall task was compared in learning disabled and nondisabled children. One-half of each group was required to learn the same number of words (34 per list), whereas list length for the other half exceeded the primacy effect of each child in immediate-free recall to the same degree. When the same number of items was learned, acquisition was slower in learning disabled than nondisabled children. When the number of items varied according to the primacy effect of each child, acquisition of both groups was similar. Clustering was lower in learning disabled than nondisabled children. In Experiment 3, multitrial-free recall acquisition of categorical lists was examined in a subject-paced task. When the number of words learned exceeded the primacy effect of each child to the same degree, trials to criterion were similar in both groups but, when the children learned the same number of items, learning-disabled children required more trials to criterion. Presentation rates were faster in learning-disabled children. Presentation rates were negatively correlated with trials to criterion and positively correlated with clustering and primacy in immediate-free recall, suggesting that study time may be taken up by clustering, rehearsal, and/or other encoding strategies. Deficient elaborative encoding may be responsible for the slower acquisition of learning-disabled children.     

Comparison of memory skills in learning disabled, low-reading, and nondisabled adolescents

Concerns are raised regarding the samples used in studies of learning disabled children. In this study, subjects were 56 high school students; 10 exhibited perceptual or processing difficulties ("learning disabled"), 15 performed poorly on reading achievement tests ("low readers"), and 31 showed no scholastic problems ("nondisabled"). Scores of the three groups were compared on nine memory tasks involving either auditory or visual input and encompassing a wide variety of content (digits, pictures, related and unrelated words, paired-associates, or sentences). The nondisabled group performed significantly better than the learning disabled group on all but one of the tasks. The low readers' performance was similar to that of the learning disabled group for some tasks, but significantly different on other tasks, most notably on tasks involving visual factors. Implications for research with learning disabled populations are discussed.     

The relationship of adolescent mothers' expectations,knowledge, and beliefs to their young children's coping behavior

Developmental researchers have begun to explore parental cognitions in an effort to better understand adolescent parenthood. However, most research on adolescent mothers has failed to relate cognitions of the mother to the child's functioning. To extend the research on adolescent-parent families, we examined the association between adolescent mothers' knowledge of child development, parental expectations, and child-rearing beliefs to their infants' or toddlers' coping behavior. Trained observers rated children on the three subscales of the Early Coping Inventory–Sensorimotor, Reactive Behavior, and Self-Initiated Behavior. The findings indicated that the adolescent mothers' self-reports of their expectations for their own and their children's behaviors and emotions accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in objective ratings of the children's coping behavior in the sensorimotor and reactive behavior domains. Adolescent mothers who reported more positive, more realistic, and more mature expectations about parenting, children, and the parent-child relationship had children who were rated to display more adaptive and effective sensorimotor and reactive behavior coping capacities. An interaction between the adolescent mothers' knowledge and beliefs significantly predicted self-initiated child behaviors. Implications of the findings include the importance of exploring a “good match” in adolescent mother-child relationships.     

Stigma by Association: Perceptions of the Dating Partners of College Students With Physical Disabilities

In an investigation of stigma by association, 179 nondisabled students gave free-response and adjective checklist responses in one of four experimental conditions: stimulus person as dating partner of a disabled male, of a disabled female, of a nondisabled male, or of a nondisabled female college student. Adjective checklist results indicated that, as compared with the partners of nondisabled individuals, the partners of disabled individuals were perceived as significantly more trustworthy and nurturant. Content analysis of the free-response item showed that the partners of disabled individuals were more likely to be described as having nurturant qualities than the partners of nondisabled individuals and were less likely to be described as intelligent, sociable, or athletic. Discussion focuses on the significance of these results for understanding disability stigma by association and on the implications of these findings for interaction between individuals with and without disabilities.     

Information processing in reading-disabled and nondisabled children

Reading disabled and nondisabled children (13-14 years of age) were presented lists of 10 words each at different rates (one word per 1, 2, and 4 sec), and immediately after the last word of each list they recalled the words in any order. Recall of the first few words presented from each list (the primacy effect) was lower in reading-disabled than nondisabled children, and slower presentation rates increased the primacy effect in both groups. These findings suggest that reading-disabled children are not completely failing to use elaborative encoding but are using less effective elaborative encoding than nondisabled readers. With all presentation rates, recall of the last few words (the recency effect) was comparable in both groups, suggesting that older reading-disabled children encode and recognize the stimuli and that elaborative encoding is deficient in reading-disabled in spite of adequate stimulus encoding and recognition.     

Depression and achievement in subgroups of children with learning disabilities

Eighty-five learning disabled children were assigned to four subgroups and administered measures designed to assess the relationship between depression and academic achievement. As a group, these children were more depressed than nondisabled children. The subgroups, which were identified as learning disabled only, learning disabled with low IQ, learning disabled with socio-emotional disturbance, and learning disabled with hyperactivity, did not differ in magnitude of depression; however, the relationships between depression and achievement and IQ were substantially different in each subgroup. For the two largest subgroups, learning disabled only and learning disabled with socio-emotional disturbance, it was suggested that depression is the consequence of learning failure in the former and a possible cause of learning failure in the latter. These findings underscore the importance of depression, a heretofore neglected variable, for the understanding and remediation of learning disabilities.     

Dynamic balance of learning disabled and nondisabled children

This investigation assessed a difference in the dynamic balance abilities of 30 learning disabled and 30 nondisabled children of elementary-school age. Only distance traveled across the beam, a novel task, was significantly different between groups; no other effects were significant. Nondisabled subjects traveled further across the beam before losing balance than learning disabled children.     

Optimism,appraisals, and coping in the adjustment of mothers and their children with spina bifida

Families of children with physical disabilities show substantial differences in the levels of adjustment of both the children and their parents. These differences result, in part, from the complex interplay of family and child adaptation resources, such as coping and social support. In order to identify factors which may differentiate levels of adjustment among families with children with physical disabilities, this study examined relationships among optimism, primary and secondary appraisals of and coping with child-related stressors, maternal psychological adjustment, and child adjustment in 29 families with a child with spina bifida without mental retardation and 28 comparison families with a nondisabled child. For the spina bifida group, primary appraisals were related to the use of avoidant coping strategies, and these coping strategies were related to maternal psychological adjustment and child internalizing behavior problems. No significant differences between the groups in terms of the nature of the relationships or in the levels of the variables were found with the exception that mothers of children with spina bifida were less optimistic than comparison mothers. These data support the importance of coping in understanding the psychological adjustment of mothers faced with a chronic stressor in the family.     

Development of the false-memory illusion

The counterintuitive developmental trend in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) illusion (that false-memory responses increase with age) was investigated in learning-disabled and nondisabled children from the 6- to 14-year-old age range. Fuzzy-trace theory predicts that because there are qualitative differences in how younger versus older children and disabled versus nondisabled children connect meaning information across the words on DRM lists, certain key effects that are observed in adult studies will be absent in young children and in learning-disabled children. Data on 6 such adult effects (list strength, recall inflation, delayed inflation, delayed stability, thematic intrusion, and true-false dissociation) were used to investigate this hypothesis, and the resulting data were consistent with prediction.     

Processing of occurrence-rate and item information by children of different ages and abilities

Two experiments compare the performance of children who vary in both age and learning ability. In the first experiment, learning disabled and nondisabled children from three age groups were tested for their incidental memory for frequency of occurrence information. In the second experiment, learning disabled and nondisabled children from two age groups were tested for their intentional memory of item information on a free recall test. In agreement with the notion that frequency is automatically encoded, all groups extracted frequency information and neither age nor learning ability influenced performance. However, both age and ability influenced performance on the recall test.     

Classification and validation of family climate subtypes in Kibbutz fathers of disabled and nondisabled children

The aim of the study was to investigate the impact of disabled children on their fathers. Perceptions of family climate, sense of coherence, and satisfaction from family life were measured among 66 fathers of disabled children and among 74 fathers with nondisabled children in an Israeli kibbutz. The fathers of disabled children showed lower sense of coherence, derived less satisfaction from family life, and viewed their families as less encouraging of personal growth among family members. Four subtypes of family climate patterns, perceived by fathers of disabled children, were identified by cluster analysis and validated by the sense of coherence and global family satisfaction measures. Cluster analysis for the fathers of nondisabled children replicated the subtypes identified. The four subtypes were conceptualized as families with a (a) personal growth orientation, (b) conflict orientation, (c) conflict avoidance orientation, and (d) recreation avoidance orientation. Significant differences were found between the subtypes with regard to the family climate variables and satisfaction and coherence measures. Results demonstrated that different patterns of family climate characterized the two groups of fathers: In almost every cluster the measures of personal growth were lower for the fathers of disabled children.The authors would like to acknowledge the editorial assistance of Dee M. Bargteil.Special Education, Kibbutzim Movement, Tel Aviv, Israel 61400.     

Effects of perceived disability on persuasiveness of computer-synthesized speech

Are perceptions of computer-synthesized speech altered by the belief that the person using this technology is disabled? In a 2 x 2 factorial design, participants completed an attitude pretest and were randomly assigned to watch an actor deliver a persuasive appeal under 1 of the following 4 conditions: disabled or nondisabled using normal speech and disabled or nondisabled using computer-synthesized speech. Participants then completed a posttest survey and a series of questionnaires assessing perceptions of voice, speaker, and message. Natural speech was perceived more favorably and was more persuasive than computer-synthesized speech. When the speaker was perceived to be speech-disabled, however, this difference diminished. This finding suggests that negatively viewed assistive technologies will be perceived more favorably when used by people with disabilities.     

Reducing Avoidance of Social Interaction with a Physically Disabled Person by Mentioning the Disability Following a Request for Aid1

The effectiveness of strategies for reducing avoidance of social interaction with a physically disabled person was experimentally investigated. Female college students privately expressed their preference for social interaction before and after learning the other was a female in a wheelchair or nondisabled. The results provide evidence for the effectiveness of mentioning the disability following a request for aid related to the disability (the Request-mention Strategy). Change in preference for social interaction was more positive when the disabled person employed the Request-mention strategy than when she said nothing. Requesting aid without mentioning the disability was not found to be effective. A request for aid unrelated to the disability was clearly ineffective. The disabled person who said nothing was avoided, in comparison to when the same person was nondisabled. Favorability of impressions of the other, as measured by ratings of her characteristics, was not influenced by the experimental conditions.