# COMMUNICATION OF PEOPLE WITH MENTAL RETARDATION

> **NIH NIH P01** · UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LAWRENCE · 1994 · $640,568

## Abstract

This proposal focuses on the communicative competence and performance
among persons with mental retardation of widely varying ages and levels of
development. The project should provide data that can contribute to an
integration of psycholinguistic, cognitive, and behavioral theory about
language, as well as adding to the knowledge of the ways in which humans
use (and can be taught) language in social context.

The plan is to use our developing research methodology to clarify the
developmental history of several crucial communication issues:

1. Categorization, including individual differences in acquisition,
performance, and retention.

2. Progression from natural gestures to symbolization, and from nonverbal
concepts to language.

3. Verbal mediation of problem solving.

4. Generalization and transfer, including the facilitation of
decontextualization.

Issue one, categorization, is integrated into each of the six projects as
a unifying focus for the research program.  Issues two, three and four are
also crucial in the acquisition of communication competencies.  The last
three issues are domains of communicative development into which
categories are mapped.  Within these organizing issues, we use methods
that stem from behavior-analytic, cognitive, and psycholinguistic theory.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 2197737
- **Project number:** 5P01HD018955-10
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LAWRENCE
- **SAM.gov UEI:** SSUJB3GSH8A5
- **Principal Investigator:** James Sherman
- **Activity code:** P01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1994
- **Award amount:** $640,568
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1984-12-01 → 1995-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/2197737

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 2197737, COMMUNICATION OF PEOPLE WITH MENTAL RETARDATION (5P01HD018955-10). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-26 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/2197737. Licensed CC0.

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