The Language of People with Mild Intellectual Disability – the research written tasks

Abstract

The research showed that intellectualy disabled children are ablo to use a wide variety of parts of speech. During the research, the analysts observed huge discrepancies in the ability to use language including its rules and system. The discrepancies are a result of individual abilities and social impact. During the research five children refused to do the task ( despite receiving motivational support). This may be a consequence of their limited psychophysical capabilities or the reluctunce to do the task.. As in every group, in this group there were individuals who did not undertake any of the tasks. The analysed statements included widely accepted vocabulary items. While speaking the subjects of the research tend to use foul language and swear words, in written assignments there weren't any. This may indicate the duality of language and at the same time subjects' awarneness of its use. Words like „kumple”( mates) and „fajne” ( cool) appered only in the letter. In the other types of statements, subjects tended to use proper structure and formal language. Written assignments undoubtedly limit the range of vocabulary. This is conditioned by the necessity of reflection and the lack of direct contact, which is more distant and formal than in spoken language. It is necessary to highlight the prefrence to use certain parts of speech. The most popular ones are nouns and verbs, which ontogenetically are primary tools allowing for describing the surroundings. The most difficult and rarest parts of speech are participles and numerals. This distribution of parts of speech in written assignments limits the range of word combinations and structures which at the same time limits the productivity of a statement. This results in the lenght of sentences. The subjects tended to use complex or compund-complex sentences. Therefore, their statement are characterised by wrong sentence structure and illogicality of the whole text. The overuse of nouns is caused by the compound -complex sentences, which are often just an enumeration of elements. Thus, the whole logical structure of an utterance is distorted, incoherent. Another problem observed in the statements is repetition of vocabulary items. The statements are short – the longest one consisted of 10 sentences.the average length was of 3-4 sentences. Mistakes in written statements are a reflection of those made in speech. Mistakes connected with pronunciation , palatal sounds, devoicing in a series of sounds were observed in written assignments. The largest number of mistakes appeared in the letter, the smallest in the picture description.the most common mistakes are spelling mistakes. These are the most difficult problem when it comes to creating a written statement. There are less punctuation, language and stylistic mistakes. This distribution may be a consequence of the frequency of usin a particular the skill. The most common are spelling and punctuation mistakes - characteristic of written language. More commonly used verbal communication is constantly corrected, therefore the muber of language and sylistic mistakes is smaller. In line with past experience, concerning the development of language skills in people with intellectual disabilities, it is clear that they have language competence. However, the acquisition of this competence is associated with a delay, as well as the difficulties in its application. Increasing the amount of review , as well as varying forms of exercise allows for the improvement of performance. The interesting finding of the report is the conclusion that language competence of intellectually disabled individuals, in particular those with mild mental retardation, cannot described as uniform. It is a mistake to claim that mentally retarded individuals lack this competence or to describe it as dependant on the level of retardation. The research has proved that there are huge discrepancies between individuals' ability to use the language system within the group of mildly retarded .It would be wrong to conclude about the level of intellectual development or define its further stages. It is important to widely describe the ability to acquire language competence and use it when planning further education or therapeutic programmes. Within this approach, it is vital to attempt recreating the assumptions for the diagnosis of developmental disorders with respect to IQ and instead relying on language competence. In diagnosing dyslexia or SLI, the assumptions do not take into account mental retardation. It seems to be more appropriate to draw conclusions connected with acquiring communicative competence and language competenmce in particular. Employing this would help to make diagnosis of developmental disorders more accurate and allow for an in-depth analysis of the concept of intellectual disability. Another problem is the tendency to describe mental retardation as a state in which a child finds itself in as resulting from lack of stimulus, improper interaction with the surrounding care and educational environment. Consequently, a large discrepancy in development, acquring communicative competence vital for proper functioning in society, is observed.