Harvey N. Switzky - Personality and motivational differences in persons with mental retardation

Cover

Page i

Personality and
Motivational Self-System
Process in Persons With
Mental Retardation:

Page ii

The LEA Series on Special Education and Disability
John Wills Lloyd, Series Editor

Crockett/Kauffman The Least Restrictive Environment: Its Origins and Interpretations in Special Education

Gallimore/Berheimer/MacMillan/Speece/Vaughn (Eds.) Developmental Perspectives on Children With High-Incidence Disabilities

Gersten/Schiller/Vaughn (Eds.) Contemporary Special Education Research: Syntheses of the Knowledge Base on Critical Instructional Issues

Hallahan/Keogh (Eds.) Research and Global Perspectives in Learning Disabilities: Essays in Honor of William M. Cruickshank

Lloyd/Kameenui/Chard (Eds.) Issues in Educating Students With Disabilities

Simmons/Kameenui (Eds.) What Reading Research Tells Us About Children With Diverse Learning Needs: Bases and Basics

Switzky (Ed.) Personality and Motivational Differences in Persons With Mental Retardation

Page iii

Edited by
Harvey N. Switzky

Northern Illinois University

Page iv

Cover design is an image of the Roman Janus, the god of beginnings.

Copyright 2001 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other means without the prior written consent of the publisher.

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
10 Industrial Avenue
Mahwah, NJ 07430

Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Personality and motivational differences in persons with mental retardation/Harvey N. Switzky, editor.
p. cm.
Includes bibiolographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8058-2569-X (cloth : alk.paper)
ISBN 0-8058-2570-3 (pbk : alk.paper)
1. Mentally handicappedPsychlogy. 2. personality development. 3 Personality and motivation. I. Switzky, Harvey N.
RC570.2.P468 2001616.82'88 dc21

2001023009

CIP

Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed on acid-free paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength and durability.

Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Page vi

4 The Role of Motivation in the Decision Making of People With Mental Retardation

Page vii

List of contributors to Personality and Motivational Differences in Persons with Mental Retardation

Elizabeth Dykens, Ph.D.
University of California, Los Angeles
Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital
Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
760 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90024-1759

Linda Hickson, Ph.D. and Ishita Khema
Teachers College
Columbia University
Box 223
525 West 120th St.
New York, NY 10027-6696

Page viii

Robert Hodapp, Ph.D
University of California, University Los Angeles
Graduate School of Education & Information Studies
Moore Hall
Box 951521
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1521

Steven Reiss, Ph.D
Nisonger Center UAP
Ohio State University
1581 Dodd Drive
Columbus, OH 43210-1296

Harvey N. Switzky, Ph.D. (Editor)
Department of Educational Psychology and Foundations
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, Il 60115

Lisa Turner, Ph.D
Department of Psychology
LSCB 320
University of South Alabama
Mobil, AL 36688

James Van Haneghan, Ph.D
Department of Behavioral Studies and Education Technology
College of Education, ILB 104
University of South Alabama
Mobil, AL 36688

Michael Wehmeyer, Ph.D
Beach Center on Families and Disabilities
University of Kansas Teachers College
Lawrence, KS 66045

Edward Zigler, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
P.O. Box 208205
Yale University
New Haven, CT. 06520-8205

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The importance of the contribution of internal self-regulatory motivational and personality variables related to the outcome performance of persons with mental retardation has been sadly overlooked by scholars, teachers and practitioners within the area of mental retardation. In my opinion, internal personality and self-regulatory motivational system processes in learners with mental retardation have been ignored because of the historical reliance of the field on both Skinnerian behavioral models with their emphases on external stimuli as modulators of outcome performance, and on the rise of cognitive models that did stress that internal thinking processes mediated behaviour but left out the influence of mediational personality and self-regulatory motivational processes on outcome performance as well as the physical and social contexts in which learning and performance occurs ( Belmont & Butterfield, 1971 ; Berkson, 1993 ; Bialer, & Sternlicht, 1977 ; Cobb & Bowers, 1999 ; Schroeder, 1990 ; Robinson, Patton, Pollaway, & Sargent, 1989 ). Concerns with developmental and internal self-regulatory motivational and personality processes