Background: This study examined the ability of 78 children (aged 9-12 years) with an intellectual disability (ID) to provide a narrative account of a staged event they had participated in four days earlier. Method: The children were interviewed using open-ended questions. The quality of their responses (using a story grammar framework) was…

Responds to "Birth Order and Intelligence: Further Tests of the Confluence Model" by Robert D. Retherford and William H. Sewell. Reviews their arguments and suggests that their analyses of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study data support rather than contradict the model. (CJS)

Persons representing the extremes of intelligence cannot be included in the same study unless they are approximately equated on mental age, in which case the relative performances of the extreme groups can provide useful information about the nature of intelligence. (Author/RD)

Do stage-related patterns of early cognitive development reported for normally developing children also characterize at-risk and handicapped children when mental age organization of data is used? Mental age predicted Piagetian-based cognitive levels one to three but did not predict highest-level symbolic functioning in 95 handicapped children.…

Discusses the reasons for the rise in IQ scores over time. Demonstrates the effect of the decrease in age at levels of schooling on the rise in IQ scores utilizing the data from the 1936 and 1968 standardization of the Otis Intermediate Test of Mental Ability, Form A, in New Zealand. (CMK)

Confluence theory was developed to explain the negative effects of birth order on intelligence. Using aggregate, between-family, within-family, and paired-sibling data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, tests the mathematical form of confluence theory and finds no support for it. Suggests that statistical methods used to fit the model to the…

Six Hong Kong preschoolers with Down syndrome who attended a center-based educational intervention program were assessed and matched on age, mental age (MA), and IQ. Three of the preschoolers also attended regular preschools two days per week. After a year, the children who also had attended regular preschool had higher MA and IQ. (Author/CR)

Sixteen individuals with autism and sixteen with Down's Syndrome, aged 10-29, were matched for verbal mental age. The groups' scores did not differ on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. However, the adaptive skills of Down's Syndrome individuals kept pace with mental age, while the skills of autistic subjects did not change. (Author/JDD)