The candidate's immediate career goal is to develop a position so that in the next 3-5 years he can have a significant impact on the study of adaption to handicapping conditions in children and their families, especially as it pertains to mental retardation and physical disabilities. The essential long-term career goal is to direct international multidisciplinary teams in comprehensive longitudinal investigations of high risk populations of children, including those with handicapping conditions, to identify factors and processes controlling adaptation, based on well-developed theories combining individual difference and epidemiological as well as behavioral and biological perspectives and using state-of-the-art statistical techniques. An RCDA award will release significant time now devoted to clinical, training, and administrative responsibilities; facilitate accelerated productivity and improved quality of research; and allow enhancement and acquisition of knowledge, particularly in the crucial areas of epidemiology and advanced multivariate statistics. The applicant institution is an excellent environment in which to accomplish these goals with a progressive health sciences center; unique programs in epidemiology, biostatistics, and medical psychology; and the recent establishment of a mental retardation research center.
The specific aims of the proposed research are to (a) evaluate change in adjustment and prevalence and incidence of maladjustment over 3 years in volunteer samples of 14 and 17 year olds with mild mental retardation; (b) evaluate and compare the contribution to their variation in adjustment and development of maladjustment from disability, intrapersonal, social- ecological, and psychosocial stress and coping factors; and (c) to evaluate the utility of an integrative comprehensive disability-stress-coping conceptual model in explaining adjustment and development of maladjustment in this population. A prospective longitudinal multivariate design will be used in studying two age groups (14 and 17) of up to 280 adolescents with mild MR, who will be followed over three yearly assessments. Adjustment will be measured over several domains (behavioral, social, and psychiatric symptomology) and maladjustment will be defined statistically on this basis.
