# RESEARCH PROGRAM ON RETARDED INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

> **NIH NIH P01** · VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY · 1994 · $521,218

## Abstract

Support is requested for the continuation of a comprehensive research
program on learning and its facilitation in children with mental
retardation or learning handicaps.  The fundamental objective of this
research program is to improve our understanding of normal and retarded
development, particularly those factors related to learning problems and
delayed cognitive development.  With respect to this goal, it should be
noted that two sections are subsumed under the theme:  Social and
Communicative Processes and Perceptual and Attentional Processes.  The
basic assumption underlying this program of research is that a problem as
complex as mental retardation should be approached by a coordinated
research effort, involving several different lines of investigation, but
focusing on particular problems related to learning and its facilitation.
The problems selected for study vary along a number of dimensions including
(a) mild to moderate functional impairments, (b) basic to applied
considerations, (c) relatively simple to complex behaviors.  Certain
important presuppositions are shared by the six projects proposed in this
application.  These follow from a commitment of the investigators to
explore the implications of a "situated cognition" framework and include
(a) a focus on behaviors and skills assumed to be at least potentially
modifiable, (b) a focus on alternative pathways to learning as appropriate
adaptations to biologically or environmentally induced handicaps, (c) a
focus on the importance of cue (i.e., stimulus) utilization in learning.
Three of the projects focus on some component of social or communication
development.  These include projects on the facilitation of prelinguistic
development, the facilitation of early language development through parent-
based intervention, the development of social referencing, nd social
influences on early mother/infant dyadic interaction.  Three projects
investigate perceptual or relational learning processes.  These include
studies of an instructional approach that utilizes videodisc technology on
young at-risk students' acquisition of comprehension and decision-making
skills, studies of the effects of varying visual presentation formats in
discrimination learning, and studies on the abilities of mildly retarded
individuals to perceive certain classes of stimuli with distinctive
attributes.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 2197174
- **Project number:** 5P01HD015051-14
- **Recipient organization:** VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
- **SAM.gov UEI:** GTNBNWXJ12D5
- **Principal Investigator:** ALFRED A BAUMEISTER
- **Activity code:** P01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1994
- **Award amount:** $521,218
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1980-04-01 → 1995-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/2197174

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 2197174, RESEARCH PROGRAM ON RETARDED INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT (5P01HD015051-14). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/2197174. Licensed CC0.

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