Using information processing strategies for early identification of mental retardation

Traditional infant intelligence tests have been notoriously poor in being able to predict intellectual functioning in later childhood. Over the past 25 years, infant behavior researchers have developed or adapted behavioral techniques that measure information processing capacities of infants. These include conditioning procedures, visual attention paradigms, and methods for assessing infant exploratory behavior. Seven techniques for measuring information processing in infants are described and discussed. An outline for an assessment battery based on these techniques is presented and discussed. This paper suggests some directions for extending extant be-havioral techniques to the identification of infants at-risk for mental retardation. Although the history of traditional infant tests might be reviewed here, this has been done by us and others (e.g., Coates & Vietze, in press; Brooks & Weinraub, 1983; Vietze & Coates, in press; Yang, 1979). Therefore, we will first describe a number of basic psychological procedures that have been devised in basic infant research and that may be labeled "information processing procedures. " Generally, traditional infant tests have been poor at predicting intelligence across the full range of intellectual ability. They have been better at predicting intelligence for low functioning children (Honzik, 1983). Information processing procedures may do better at differentiating low- from high-functioning children and therefore might be used for early identification of mental retardation. Next, the steps that might be taken to furthe