Social behavior and knowledge of social "scripts" among mentally retarded adults

Abstract

Mentally retarded individuals' script-based knowledge and performance of routine events was explored. Twenty mentally retarded adults and 20 nonretarded preschoolers were asked to sequence photographs of events depicted in familiar and novel contexts. Retarded individuals were better able to sequence events depicted in familiar contexts than in novel contexts, suggesting deficits in generalizing social knowledge. Preschoolers performed above chance levels in the familiar context only. Observations of retarded individuals during naturally occurring events indicated that actual social behavior was unrelated to event knowledge.