The Active Assessment of Educability: A Case Study

Abstract

It has been suggested that when people with profound mental retardation do not show significant progress in training programs, those training efforts should be discontinued. This case study examines this implicit uneducability diagnosis for an individual who had not shown progress in over 2 years of training in eating skills. During 138 days of programming by a special training team, the subject made variable but substantial progress toward independent eating. An attempt to transfer these techniques to regular direct care staff resulted in reductions in both procedural consistency and subject performance. Results suggest that negative educability assessments based on performance in standard educational programs may be misleading.