# LINGUISTIC COMMUNICATION AND MENTAL RETARDATION

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON · 1994 · $116,837

## Abstract

This project is designed to investigate the development of verbal
communication in school-age persons with mild forms of mental
retardation.  The project is based on a model in which any act of
communication is thought to involve two goals: (a) the exchange of
information about the participants' intentions, beliefs, and desires and
(b) the maintenance of appropriate social relationships among the
participants.  The project has four specific aims.  The first aim is to
determine the extent and nature of the problems that persons with mental
retardation experience in achieving the goals of communication.  To this
end, eight studies will be conducted. Four focus on the task of
establishing the referents of messages, which is an important component
of the goal of exchanging information.  The remaining studies focus on
being polite when making and responding to requests, which is an
important component of the goal of maintaining appropriate social
relationships.  In each study, the performance of persons with mental
retardation on a communication task will be compared to that of
nondisabled children matched to them on nonverbal MA.  The second aim is
to provide data on the ways in which achieving the goals of communication
is constrained by skills in cognition (i.e., problem solving, memory,
factual knowledge), social cognition (i.e., perspective taking, knowledge
of social status), and linguistic competence (i.e., syntax and
semantics).  To meet this aim, the relation between performance on each
communication task and measures of linguistic, cognitive, and
social-cognitive competence will be examined through multiple regression
analyses.  The third aim is to test the hypothesis that because many
persons with mental retardation produce speech low in intelligibility,
their communicative performance often is based more on a desire to avoid
talking than on a consideration of how best to achieve the goals of
communication.  This aim will be met by examining the relation between
the intelligibility of the speech produced by the subjects with mental
retardation and their performance on each of the communication tasks.
The fourth aim is to provide data relevant to the hypothesis that the
parents of persons with mental retardation interact with their children
in ways that are less than optimal for the development of the latter's
communication skills.  To meet this aim, interactions between parents and
their children will be examined for the occurrence of parental behaviors
known to affect the communicative development of nondisabled children.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 2199138
- **Project number:** 5R01HD024356-07
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
- **SAM.gov UEI:** LCLSJAGTNZQ7
- **Principal Investigator:** LEONARD J. ABBEDUTO
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1994
- **Award amount:** $116,837
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1987-09-01 → 1996-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/2199138

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 2199138, LINGUISTIC COMMUNICATION AND MENTAL RETARDATION (5R01HD024356-07). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/2199138. Licensed CC0.

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