Intra-oral shape recognition by 138 mentally retarded subjects.

Among Ss with normal intelligence, oral shape-recognition tests have shown a relationship between articulatory ability and oral sensory integrity. This investigation explored oral sensory impairment as a possible contributory cause of the articulatory difficulties exhibited by the mentally retarded. The Florida Oral-form Recognition Measure (FORM), a task requiring the intra-oral identification of 10 geometric shapes, was administered to 138 mentally retarded Ss. Twenty Ss were retested to establish reliability. Ss were placed in groups according to etiological categories (AAMD classification) and were assigned speech ratings by a speech pathologist. Of the total sample, 86% had varying degrees of defective speech or language. Mean FORM score was 3.5, and preliminary analysis yielded significant correlations between FORM score and IQ and between speech and language rating. Further multivariate analysis with IQ held as a co-variant indicated no significant relationship between FORM score and communicative ability. This suggests caution in inferring that intra-oral shape-recognition scores reflect degree of oral sensory integrity. Perhaps a battery of oral perceptual tasks might more validly assess oral sensation-perception and aid in clarifying its relationship to speech.