Michigan State University Extension
Diversity and Pluralism - 11120098
12/95/
ERIC TITLE NUMBER: ED133404 AUTHOR: Mercer, Jane R.
TITLE: Cultural Diversity, Mental Retardation, and
Assessment: The Case for Nonlabeling.
YEAR PUBLISHED: (1976)
NOTE: 17 p.; Paper presented at the Fourth International
Congress of the International Association for the
Scientific Study of Mental Deficiency. (Washington, D.C.,
August
22-27, 1976)
ABSTRACT: The System of Multicultural Pluralistic
Assessment (SOMPA) is designed for use in a culturally
diverse society. The system was developed on 700
English-speaking caucasian children (hereafter called
Anglos) from the anglo core culture, 700 black children,
and 700 Latino Children (90 percent were of
Mexican-American heritage) five through eleven years of
age. The SOMPA is a system of assessment which triangulates
the evaluation process. It looks at the child through a
Medical Model and screens for possible anomalies indicated
by the Health History, performance on the physical
Dexterity Battery, or tests of Vision or Hearing. Using a
Social System Model. It looks at the child's performances
in family roles, nonacademic school roles, peer group
roles, community roles, earner/consumer roles,
self-maintenance roles, and academic school roles.
Using a Puralistic Model, it evaluates the child's
performance relative to others from the same sociocultural
background and makes inferences about the child's Estimated
Learning Potential. Through this process, it is hoped that
the non-anglo child whose potential may be masked by the
distance between the child's location in sociocultural
space and the culture of the school will be identified.
(Author/JM)
KEY DESCRIPTORS: Academic-Ability; Adolescents-; Black
Students; Elementary-School-Students; Measurement
Techniques; Medical-Evaluation; Mexican-Americans;
Preschool
Children; Social-Development; White-Students
KEY DESCRIPTORS: *Cultural-Pluralism; *Educational
Diagnosis; *Mental-Retardation; *Minority-Group-Children;
*Test-Construction
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