This project will extend our previous work on the development of personal and social competence over the life span, including critical life events, of a large saturation sample of all mentally retarded individuals receiving services in the State of California, i.e., those in institutions, board and care, group homes, foster care, convalescent hospitals, and their own homes. The resulting life-span growth curves will be studied by sex, age, level of retardation, diagnosis of mental retardation, and type of placement. A subsample of the saturation sample will be selected in order to examine the effect of additional important variables, namely, family constellation, parenting practices, and quality of the environment of development. We will characterize the development of adaptive behavior and change in maladaptice behavior over the life span using conventional forms of the linear model and latent variable structure equation models. For the subsample, we will employ a variety of causal models included in LISREL to isolate and explicate the effects of the home constellation, parenting practices, environment, etc., on client development. Additional goals include the prediction of future trends in placement and mortality is the result of client characteristics and ongoing changes in California's policies regarding standards, licensing requirements, budget, etc. Initial level and subsequent changes in adaptive and maladaptive behavior in conjunction with age will also be used to predict future placement and mortality. The saturation sample will consist of approximately 50,000 retarded individuals receiving services from the State of California. The subsample will be a stratified random sample of the saturation sample and consist of 1,000 clients. A wide variety of instruments will be used.
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