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Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Mental Retardation: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10295.
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Biographical Sketches

Daniel J. Reschly (Chair) is professor of education and psychology and chair of the Department of Special Education at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. He has published more than 100 articles, chapters, and books on the topics of school psychology professional practices, mild mental retardation, the assessment of disabilities in minority children and youth, and legal issues in special education. He has served as an expert witness in various school-related court cases for the state of Iowa for over a decade. He was a member of the National Research Council’s Committee on Goals 2000 and the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities and currently serves on the Committee on Representation of Minority Children in Special Education and Gifted Programs. He has a Ph.D. in school psychology from the University of Oregon.

Harolyn M. E. Belcher is currently a neurodevelopmental pediatrician at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and assistant professor in the

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Mental Retardation: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10295.
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Department of Pediatrics at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She has served as chair on both the nominations subcommittee and the minority access to health care committee for the section on children with disabilities at the American Academy of Pediatrics. She has published extensively and continues to receive federal and state funding for work in the area of developmental disabilities in infancy and childhood and the effects of prenatal drug exposure on development. She has an M.D. from the College of Medicine at Howard University.

Jan Blacher is professor of education at the University of California, Riverside. Her research and writing has addressed family adjustment, the transition to adulthood, dual diagnosis, and out-of-home placement in white and Hispanic families. Her longitudinal research on families of children and young adults with severe disabilities spans 19 years and is funded by the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development. She has served as consulting editor for the American Journal on Mental Retardation and Mental Retardation and is frequently asked to appear as an expert in cases involving right to education or placement for children with autism, mental retardation, and developmental disabilities. She is a fellow of the American Association on Mental Retardation and Division 33 of the American Psychological Association. She has an A.B. in psychology from Brown University and a Ph.D. in special education/developmental psychology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Bruce A. Bracken is a professor in the School of Education at the College of William and Mary. He has written more than 100 articles and chapters on school assessments and has developed numerous behavioral, cognitive, and nonverbal intelligence assessment tools. He is the editor and cofounder of the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment and has been a member of the American Psychological Association’s Committee on Psychological Testing and Assessment. He is a member of the National Association of School Psychologists. He has a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Georgia.

Elizabeth M. Dykens is associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and associate director for train-

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Mental Retardation: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10295.
×

ing at the Mental Retardation Research Center and research and training at the Tarjan Center for Developmental Disabilities at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research identifies the neurobehavioral and developmental phenotypes of individuals with genetic mental retardation syndromes. She examines genetic, psychosocial, and developmental sources of individual differences within syndromes. She has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Kansas.

Christine R. Hartel (Study Director) is director of the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences at the National Research Council. Previously, she was associate executive director for science at the American Psychological Association. At the National Institute on Drug Abuse, she awarded grants and contracts for basic and clinical research on drug abuse in the fields of neuroscience, behavior, pharmacology, and chemistry. She has written many articles and edited two books on drug abuse and illicit drug demand reduction. As a research psychologist at the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, she received the army’s highest civilian award for technical excellence. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and a member of the Society for Neuroscience. She has a Ph.D. in biopsychology from the University of Chicago.

Thomas Hehir is a lecturer in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. He served as director of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs from 1993 to 1999. As director, he was responsible for federal leadership in implementing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Previously he was associate superintendent for the Chicago Public Schools, where he was responsible for special education services and student support services; he implemented major changes in the special education service delivery system. He has published articles on special education, special education in the reform movement, due process, and least restrictive environment issues. He has a Ph.D. in education from Harvard University.

John W. Jacobson is a planner and applied researcher in the New York State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabili-

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Mental Retardation: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10295.
×

ties. He has published extensively on a diverse range of topics related to developmental disabilities, including population disability demographics, program evaluation, clinical services management and development, psychiatric disability, definition of developmental disabilities and mental retardation, adaptive development, and treatment efficacy. His current work focuses on the clinical and managerial issues in the delivery of individual support and housing services for people with developmental disabilities. He is also involved in training professionals and direct personnel on the impact of comorbid psychiatric diagnoses in individuals with mental retardation. He has a Ph.D. in general applied psychology and developmental disabilities across the life span from the University of Vermont, Burlington.

Bette R. Keltner is the dean of the School of Nursing at Georgetown University and codirector of the National Center for Family Diversity and Developmental Disabilities. Her research interests include families of children with mental retardation, the special needs of mothers with developmental disabilities, and rural family support for people with disabilities. She has published extensively in the area of culturally diverse families and developmental disabilities and has been the principal investigator on a number of federally funded studies on mental retardation and minority families facing challenging life circumstances. She has a Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Texas, Austin.

Marty W. Krauss is professor of social welfare and director of the Starr Center for Mental Retardation in the Heller Graduate School at Brandeis University. She has published widely in the area of life-span development of individuals with mental retardation and is particularly interested in the social support and coping styles of aging mothers of adult children with mental retardation and mental illness. She received the Future Leaders in Mental Retardation Award from the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., Foundation and is an elected fellow of the American Association on Mental Retardation. She has a Ph.D. in social welfare from Brandeis University.

Tracy G. Myers (Senior Research Associate) joined the National

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Mental Retardation: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10295.
×

Research Council to serve as senior research associate for the study. Prior to joining the National Research Council, he worked at Westat, Inc., on experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations of human services intervention programs targeted toward children and their families. His areas of interest include risk and protective factors that affect child and adolescent health and psychopathology, psychological assessment, minority mental health, and program evaluation. He has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Hans Palmer is the W. M. Keck distinguished service professor and professor of economics at Pomona College where he served as Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Dean of the college from 1998-2001. He was the recipient of a National Science Foundation Faculty Fellowship to Oxford, England, where he worked with a health services evaluation group. He has also served as a visiting scholar at a number of American universities studying the economics of health care and aging. He has published on long-term care and on the effects of health care on the economy. His current research is examining home health care and service use by the elderly in community settings, the effects of medical research on the U.S. economy and on health insurance, and a grade of membership analysis of veterans with spinal cord impairments. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Sharon L. Ramey is the founding director of the Civitan International Research Center at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and professor of psychiatry, psychology, pediatrics, neurobiology, sociology, maternal and child health, and nursing. She is a developmental psychologist whose professional interests include the study of intellectual and developmental disabilities, early experience and early intervention, the changing American family, and transition to school. She is actively engaged in research on American Indian families, strategies to enhance prenatal care for high-risk women, the prevention of developmental disabilities, and the effects of welfare reform on families and children. She is the author of numerous articles and three books, has

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Mental Retardation: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10295.
×

made presentations at national and international conferences, and continues to receive substantial funding on developmental disabilities from federal and private agencies. She has a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Washington.

James Shanteau is professor of psychology and has served as director of the Institute for Social and Behavioral Research at Kansas State University. He is former program director of the decision, risk, and management science program at the National Science Foundation. He has published numerous articles and books in the areas of judgment and decision making behavior, expert decision making, and the evaluation of psychological measurement and model testing techniques. He has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Transportation, and the National Institutes of Health for his research related to judgment theory and decision analysis. He has a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of California, San Diego.

Wayne P. Silverman is the chief research scientist and chairman of the Department of Psychology of the New York State Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities. He has received multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health and has contributed to numerous publications on topics ranging from basic studies of cognition to applied studies of the characteristics and service needs of people with profound mental retardation and multiple disabilities. He has collaborated with colleagues working in biomedical research for many years and now directs a large multidisciplinary program project that is studying the effects of aging and Alzheimer’s disease on the cognitive, functional, and health status of adults with mental retardation. He has a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Gary N. Siperstein is a professor in the Human Services Center and the director of the Center for Social Development and Education at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He has carried out federally funded research for the past 25 years in the area of mental retardation, with a specific focus on the social aspects of the disability. His

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Mental Retardation: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10295.
×

research on the social acceptance of children with disabilities in the classroom has been carried out both nationally and internationally. He has published numerous articles and chapters on mental retardation and related disabilities. More recently, he and his colleagues have written on the issues of diagnosis and classification of individuals with mental retardation. He has a Ph.D. in developmental psychology and special education from the Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology at Yeshiva University.

Sara S. Sparrow is professor of psychology and the chief psychologist at the Yale University Child Study Center. Since receiving a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and neuropsychology in 1968, she has published numerous articles and book chapters and presented many papers on cognitive and behavioral assessments in children with developmental learning disabilities and mental retardation. She has been an editor and a consulting reviewer for numerous journals, including the Journal of Clinical Neuropsychology, the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Developmental Psychology, and the Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry. She also has conducted numerous workshops on the administration and interpretation of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales with community and state agencies that determine disabilities associated with mental retardation.

Keith F. Widaman is professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, and the director of its Center for Quantitative Social Science Research. He has received numerous awards and honors for his research and teaching activities in the area of developmental psychology and has published numerous refereed articles and book chapters. He has served on the editorial board of numerous journals on mental retardation, psychological measurement, and statistical methods, including Psychological Methods and the American Journal on Mental Retardation. He has been actively involved in research on lifespan development of individuals with mental retardation for over 20 years and has been awarded various federal grants from the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development and the U.S. Department of Education. He has a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from The Ohio State University.

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Mental Retardation: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10295.
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Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Mental Retardation: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10295.
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Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Mental Retardation: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10295.
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Current estimates suggest that between one and three percent of people living in the United States will receive a diagnosis of mental retardation. Mental retardation, a condition characterized by deficits in intellectual capabilities and adaptive behavior, can be particularly hard to diagnose in the mild range of the disability. The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) provides income support and medical benefits to individuals with cognitive limitations who experience significant problems in their ability to perform work and may therefore be in need of governmental support. Addressing the concern that SSA’s current procedures are consistent with current scientific and professional practices, this book evaluates the process used by SSA to determine eligibility for these benefits. It examines the adequacy of the SSA definition of mental retardation and its current procedures for assessing intellectual capabilities, discusses adaptive behavior and its assessment, advises on ways to combine intellectual and adaptive assessment to provide a complete profile of an individual's capabilities, and clarifies ways to differentiate mental retardation from other conditions.

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