Body-rocking and other habits of college students and persons with mental retardation.
Prevalence of body-rocking in college students was assessed, and the characteristics of body-rocking of college students were compared to those of individuals with mental retardation. For college students, the prevalence depended on the restrictiveness of the method used and varied between 3% and 25%. Video samples showed that when compared with college students, a greater proportion of people with mental retardation engage in body-rocking, seem less sensitive to situational factors, demonstrate atypical collateral behaviors, engage in less leg-kicking, and execute their body-rocking with larger amplitudes. There were no differences in duration or number of individual rocks or bouts of body-rocking. We conclude that body-rocking is a "normal" behavior whose form of expression may become atypical.
Berkson
G
G
Department of Psychology (MC/285), University of Illinois at Chicago 60607-7137, USA.
Rafaeli-Mor
N
N
Tarnovsky
S
S
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006184:Habits; D006801:Humans; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D015983:Selection Bias; D019956:Stereotypic Movement Disorder / Q000145:classification / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D014481:United States