Learned Helplessness in Learning Disabled Adolescents as a Function of Noncontingent Rewards

1983 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Jeannie Kleinhammer-Tramill ◽  
James L. Tramill ◽  
Susan N. Schrepel ◽  
Stephen F. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Learned Helplessness ◽  
Design Patterns ◽  
Block Design ◽  
Learning Disabled ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Disabled Children ◽  
Response Latencies ◽  
Response Contingent ◽  
Educational Environments ◽  
Contingent Rewards

The study was designed to examine the effect of noncontingent rewards on learned helplessness in learning disabled children. Noncontingent rewards are of particular importance for students receiving services in a variety of educational environments. Subjects were exposed to two series of tasks, the first involved replication of a series of block design patterns. Children were randomly assigned to three reward schedules: response-contingent reward, 100% noncontingent reward, and 50% random noncontingent reward. A fourth control group was not exposed to the first series of tasks. The second task series involved the solution of coding problems. On these tasks, all children received response-contingent rewards for performance. Response latency and errors on each coding task served as dependent measures. Analysis of variance yielded significantly greater response latencies for subjects assigned to the noncontingent reward conditions than for those who received contingent rewards and for controls. No differences in number of errors were found. The results suggest that learning disabled children may become “learned helpless” as a result of instructional interventions involving use of noncontingent rewards.

Field Dependence in Visually and Nonvisually Involved Learning Disabled Children

1976 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Cowen ◽  
Norman I. Harway
Keyword(s):  
Field Dependence ◽  
Learning Disabled ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Disabled Children ◽  
Field Independent ◽  
Embedded Figures ◽  
Dependence Measures ◽  
Perceptually Impaired ◽  
Rod And Frame

39 visually and nonvisually perceptually impaired 8- to 11-yr.-old boys with learning disabilities were compared with a control group of 35 “normal” learners on the Rod-and-frame and Children's Embedded-figures Tests. Previous findings of greater field dependence of learning disabled children are confounded because the experimental tasks involved visual perception. In our study the 27 “visuals” were more field-dependent than either the 12 “nonvisuals” or the controls. The latter groups did not differ significantly from one another, which may in part be a function of the small sample of nonvisual children identified. Alternative explanations, e.g., the visual nature of the field-dependence measures and the lack of reading difficulty of the nonvisual group, are considered. For the visually disabled Ss only Vocabulary scores correlate significantly with Rod-and-frame and Embedded-figures scores, suggesting that among such children those with higher verbal intelligence may be more field-independent.

Learning disabled children's conversational competence: responses to inadequate messages

1980 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 387-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mavis Donahue ◽  
Ruth Pearl ◽  
Tanis Bryan
Keyword(s):  
Learning Disabled ◽  
Referential Communication ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
Disabled Children ◽  
Normal Children ◽  
Response Latencies ◽  
Communication Task ◽  
Conversational Competence

ABSTRACTThis study examined learning disabled children's understanding of conversational rules for initiating the repair of a communicative breakdown. Learning disabled and normal children in grades 1 through 8 played the listener role in a referential communication task requiring them to select referents based on messages varying in informational adequacy. Learning disabled children were less likely to request clarification of inadequate messages and, consequently, made fewer correct referent choices than normal children. Only young learning disabled girls were less able than their normal age-mates to appraise message adequacy. Analyses of response latencies and request type also suggest that the failure to request clarification cannot be attributed solely to linguistic deficits. Results are discussed in terms of the relative contributions of syntactic-semantic ability and social knowledge to conversational competence.

Communication Breakdowns in Normal and Language Learning-Disabled Children's Conversation and Narration

1988 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara G. MacLachlan ◽  
Robin S. Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Unit Length ◽  
Learning Disabled ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Chronological Age ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Speech Sample ◽  
Disabled Children ◽  
Communication Breakdowns ◽  
Children's Speech

The frequency and type of communication breakdowns occurring in the speech of 7 language learning-disabled children (LLD), aged 9:10–11:1 (years:months), were examined in two conditions, conversation and narration, and compared to a group of 7 normal peers matched for chronological age and 7 peers matched for mean length of communication unit in conversation. Types of communication breakdowns examined included stalls, repairs, and abandoned utterances. The LLD group incurred a significantly greater rate of communication breakdowns per communication unit in narration than conversation compared to control group differences. Mean length of communication unit was also significantly greater in narration than conversation for the LLD group compared to controls. For all groups, across both speech sample conditions, longer communication units contained more breakdowns than shorter ones. The groups did not differ in the types of breakdowns. Communication unit length and the nature of the narrative task may account for the increased dysfluencies in LLD children's speech.

Peer Acceptance of Learning Disabled Children in the Regular Classroom

1989 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Lynn Fox
Keyword(s):  
Interest Group ◽  
Social Acceptance ◽  
Peer Acceptance ◽  
Learning Disabled ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Disabled Children ◽  
Students With Learning Disabilities ◽  
Academic Task ◽  
Academic Activities ◽  
Mutual Interest

Mainstreamed handicapped children often experience social rejection by their nonhandicapped peers. To evaluate possible approaches leading to a resolution of peer rejection, 86 low socially accepted learning disabled children in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades were paired for 8 weeks with 86 high socially accepted, same-sexed, nonhandicapped classmates, in four groups: mutual interest group, cooperative academic task group, Hawthorne Effect/Control group, and classroom control group. Social acceptance ratings of students with learning disabilities by their nonhandicapped peers, paired in the mutual interest group, increased significantly as a function of the intervention. Those in the academic activities group and in the Hawthorne control group did not change. However, ratings of the classroom control group showed a lowered acceptance level over time.

Locus of Control and Learning Disabilities: A Review and Discussion

1982 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 503-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Curtis C. Dudley-Marling ◽  
Vicki Snider ◽  
Sara G. Tarver
Keyword(s):  
Learning Disabilities ◽  
Locus Of Control ◽  
Learned Helplessness ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Learning Disabled ◽  
Disabled Children ◽  
External Locus ◽  
Normally Achieving ◽  
External Locus Of Control ◽  
The Relationship

It has been widely reported that an external locus of control is associated with children who experience failure. A review of the relevant literature indicates that learning disabled children, like other groups of children who have experienced failure, are more likely to exhibit an external locus of control than their normally achieving peers. In particular, learning disabled children have been found to be more likely than normally achieving students to attribute their successes, but not their failures, to external factors. The relationship of the locus of control construct to the field of learning disabilities is discussed in terms of four questions: (1) what is the relationship between locus of control and academic achievement?, (2) how is locus of control related to learned helplessness?, (3) is a change in locus of control orientation desirable?, and (4) what is the utility of locus of control for the education of learning disabled children? It is concluded that, in the course of remediation, attention should be devoted to the entire syndrome of characteristics associated with failure but within the context of academic intervention.

Empathy in Learning Disabled Children

1976 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 541-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary H. Bachara
Keyword(s):  
Learning Disabilities ◽  
Matched Control ◽  
Learning Disabled ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Disabled Children ◽  
Matched Control Group

25 7- to 12-yr.-old boys with visual perceptual problems and learning disabilities were compared on the Borke Scales for Empathy with a matched control group. The learning disabled group had significantly greater difficulty recognizing and labeling emotions.

Noncontingent Reward-Induced Learned Helplessness in Humans

1987 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 559-564
Author(s):  
David G. Lamb ◽  
Stephen F. Davis ◽  
James L. Tramill ◽  
P. Jeannie Kleinhammer-Tramill
Keyword(s):  
Learned Helplessness ◽  
Treatment Phase ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Block Designs ◽  
Contingent Reward ◽  
Response Contingent

Noncontingent verbal and concrete rewards were incorporated into a learned-helplessness paradigm in an attempt to provide increased generalizability of the reward-induced helplessness phenomenon. The treatment phase required subjects to reproduce a series of block-designs, for which they received either verbal or concrete reward according to one of three schedules: response contingent, 100% noncontingent, or 50% random noncontingent. A control group was not exposed to the task. The performance phase involved a letter/number-substitution coding task during which all subjects received response-contingent reward. Analysis showed a helplessness effect, with the noncontingent reward conditions producing significantly more errors and omissions than contingent reward and/or control conditions. Differences in effects of verbal and concrete rewards were nonsignificant.

Applying Programming Principles to Remedial Handwriting Practice

1978 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph J. Stowitschek
Keyword(s):  
Field Evaluation ◽  
Learning Disabled ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Field Conditions ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Laboratory Setting ◽  
Disabled Children ◽  
Control Group Design ◽  
Group Design ◽  
Validation Research

The use of a validation research strategy applied to the evaluation of a remedial handwriting instruction package is described The main feature of the package is a programming procedure used to adapt conventional worksheets and workbook pages that emphasize repetitive practice on manuscript letter formation. The main feature of the evaluation is that teachers in classes for learning disabled children used the package entirely under their own direction and under the prevailing classroom conditions. Thirty-four children and eleven teachers participated in the study which employed a pretest/posttest control group design. Results indicated that although teachers did not use the package as consistently or extensively as it had been used by the experimenters in a laboratory setting, they did achieve an acceptable rate of improvement in the manuscript letter formation performance of their students. These findings support the premise of validation researchers that results obtained on an instruction procedure or program when used under more or less laboratory conditions can not necessarily be expected to generalize to field conditions and that field evaluation must, as closely as possible, approximate projected condtions of use following dissemination.

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