An investigation into prescriptive team teaching as a means of training mentally retarded children in visual perception

Abstract

From the time of Itard, in the early nineteenth century, M.J. Itard, The Wild Boy of Aveyron(New York, Appleton Century Crofts, 1962) training in visual perception has been regarded as an essential part of the curriculum of mentally retarded children. While research indicates that perceptual training of the mentally retarded appears to be effective with side benefits accruing to achievement and intelligence, the training sessions have always involved skilled technicians taking the children, either in groups or individually. Tyson M.C. Tyson, "Pilot Study of Remedial Visuo-Motor Trainer" Special Education, 52 (1963), 22. used only four children in his experimental group matched with four controls for degree of visual perception, medical diagnosis and intelligence quotient but not closely matched for age, sex, or class in school. At the end of three semesters of training in visual perception, the four experimental showed significant improvement.