title: Peripheral and central handicap and encoding.
abstract: A linear model of information processing led to many experiments on learning difficulties in the subnormal and severely subnormal. It assumes learning can result from a break in the chain of information flow at any point but overlooks compensatory mechanisms common to a developing organism. To compensate for the model's difficulties, we compared blind and deaf children with subnormal and subnormal autistic children (i.e. localized with general cognitive incapacities). Absence of a modality led to alternative encoding strategies, but in certain circumstances they also occurred in the centrally handicapped. Reasons for the similarities and differences are discussed.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D001766:Blindness / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D003638:Deafness / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000523:psychology*; D007360:Intelligence; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010465:Perception; D013028:Space Perception; D013998:Time Perception; D014110:Touch; D014163:Transfer, Psychology