Transactional Analysis Journal

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The Relationship of Teacher Adult Ego State to Interactions with Retarded Students
Robert Fettgather
Transactional Analysis Journal 1987 17: 35
DOI: 10.1177/036215378701700207

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Research
The Relationship of Teacher Adult Ego State
to Interactions with Retarded Students
Robert Fettgather
Abstract
Research has demonstrated that one con-
sequence of mental retardation is that
retarded individuals may be treated as if they
are much younger than their chronological
ages. This study considers the possible rela-
tionship between a teacher's Adult ego state
functioning and his or her tendency to in-
teract with retarded adult students in a way
which respects the students' chronological
ages.
A primary concept in transactional analysis
is that an individual's psychological structure
consists of three ego states: Parent, Adult and
Child (Berne, 1961). Since the Adult ego state
(AES) is essentially concerned with the objec-
tive appraisal of reality, this research advances
the suggestion that persons functioning from the
AES might bring a special awareness and com-
municative ability to their work with mentally
retarded adults. Specifically, those teachers
tending toward an AES orientation might avoid
one of the major clinical problems in working
with this population: the infantilization of
retarded adults.
Infantilization refers to the act of treating
retarded persons as if they are much younger
than their chronological ages (Reiss & Benson,
1984; Webster, 1970). Such treatment has in
recent years been criticized for promoting
dependency and immaturity among retarded
adults who might otherwise be striving for
greater autonomy (Schulman, 1980). In con-
trast, interaction which respects the chronolog-
ical age of the retarded adult has been called
age-appropriate interaction (Bercovici, 1983;
Wolfensberger, 1975).
This study investigated the relationship of
AES functioning to age-appropriate (and thus
non-infantilizing) interaction. It was hypoth-
Vol. 17. No.2, April 1987
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esized that individuals tending to function more
from the AES would objectively recognize the
chronological adulthood of retarded adults and
interact with them in a more age-appropriate
way. It was also reasoned that the more com-
pletely the AES was cathected, the less likely
would be the occurrence of parenting, and
perhaps infantilizing, interactions associated
with the Parent ego state. This idea is based
on Dusay's (1972) assertion that the in-
dividual's over-involvement with one ego state
lessens their use of other ego states.
Method
The study used two assessment instruments
for evaluating AES functioning and age-
appropriate behavior, respectively. The Adjec-
tive Check List (ACL), developed by Gough
and Heilbrun (1983), was selected as a reliable
and valid measure of ego state functioning. It
is a self-report instrument from which the
respondent chooses self-descriptive adjectives
from a list of 300 items (e.g., considerate,
dependent, zany). A set of transactional
analysis subscales have been developed for the
ACL making it appropriate to the present in-
quiry (Williams & Williams, 1980).
Age-appropriate interaction was defined as
the absence of infantilizing interaction. Because
it is composed of a group of measurable
behaviors, infantilizing interaction, not age-
appropriate interaction, was recorded. Thus the
negative correlation expected between AES
functioning and infantilization would support
the hypothesis that high AES subjects use more
age-appropriate interactions.
Measurement of infantilizing interaction was
accomplished via the Infantilization Checklist
(IC), an instrument developed by the author.
The content of the checklist was based on a
review of the literature on the infantilization of
retarded persons. The seven behavioral do-
35
ROBERT FETTGATHER
domains of the IC were constructed along the
guidelines for behavior measurement set forth
by Hawkins (1982). These require a descrip-
tive title, a general definition, an elaboration
of that definition to point out how the response
differs from other responses, and examples of
inclusion and exclusion under the specified
definition. A brief description of the seven do-
mains of the IC are as follows:
Child labels (CL): the act of verbally label-
ing an adult by a term generally applied to
children (e.g., girl, boy)
Fictive kinship labels (F): the act of en-
couraging the adult to use pseudo-familial labels
for the helping professional (e.g., dad,
grandma)
Patronization (P): the act of using a con-
descending manner, content, or voice tone.
Fostering Dependence (FD): the act of pro-
viding unnecessary assistance to the adult.
Tactile Affection (T): the act of affectionate
touching of the adult in a way more suited to
interactions with children.
Disapprovals (D): the expression of verbal
disapproval accompanied by negative affect.
Commands (C): the expression of instruc-
tional or behavioral directives not accompanied
by negative affect.
The inclusion of a commands domain on the
IC requires the following clarification. The use
of commands as an instructional technique with
mentally retarded individuals is a generally ac-
cepted practice (Striefel, Wetherby, & Karlan,
1978). However, Bercovici (1983) has cau-
tioned that interactions with retarded persons
can become predominantly command oriented.
Because such relationships tend to diminish the
adult social status of the retarded participant,
the IC has been designed to measure the ex-
tent to which helping professionals employ
commands.
The subjects of the study were eight teachers
of mentally retarded adults. The teachers were
videotaped in class, and the tape was subse-
quently rated via the IC in thirty-second inter-
vals by two independent observers. Interob-
server reliability was calculated for each obser-
vation interval and showed .92 agreement on
the occurrence and non-occurrence of infan-
tilizing behaviors.
Results
The ACL yielded standard scores on the
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Adult scale for each subject, while the IC gave
a percentage score (percent of observation in-
tervals in which the specified infantilizing
behavior occurred) for each of seven domains.
The relationship between ACL scores and each
domain of the IC was evaluated by a Pearson
Product Moment Correlation Coefficient.
The hypothesized negative correlation was
found in six of seven IC domains. However,
only the Tactile Affection domain showed a
statistically significant inverse relationship,
r= -.96 (P< .01). The other IC domains yield-
ed the following coefficients: CL, r= - .39; F,
r=-.13; P, r=-.20; FD, r=-.52; D,
r=.39; and C, r=-.36.
Thus, most IC domains were inversely
related to ACL Adult scores, and this relation-
ship was most pronounced for the Tactile Af-
fection domain. Simply expressed, teachers
with higher Adult ego state scores tended not
to touch adults affectionately as if touching a
child.
Discussion
The application of TA ego state theory to the
problem of infantilizing retarded adults may
well further a better understanding of this
phenomenon. As this study suggests, the
tendency to treat this population in an age-
appropriate manner may be related to aspects
of the personality associated with the Adult ego
state. The relationship of the other ego states
to both age-appropriate and infantilizing in-
teractions is also of interest. This is true par-
ticularly for the Parent ego state which em-
bodies critical and nurturing aspects that are
theoretically consistent with the infantilization
construct. However, a comparison of Critical
Parent and Nurturing Parent ACL scores with
IC sores for the eight teachers failed to sup-
port the suspected correlations. In addition,
several contradictory relationships were noted:
Critical Parent scores were inversely related to
Commands scores, while Nurturing Parent
scores were inversely related to Tactile Affec-
tion scores and positively related to Disapproval
scores.
These findings point to the need for further
research in personality factors as they relate to
the tendency to infantilize retarded individuals.
A follow-up study on the Adult, Parent, and
even Child ego states of a larger sample of help-
ing professionals is indicated. Since the tenden-
Transactional Analysis Journal
 RELATIONSHIP OF TEACHER ADULT EGO STATE TO INTERACTIONS WITH RETARDED STUDENTS
cy to infantilize may be related to other per-
sonality factors (e.g., nurturance, dominance,
thoughtfulness) or combinations of such fac-
tors, these may provide important avenues for
future research.
Beyond this type of analysis exists the prom-
ise of training professionals with high IC* pro-
files in transactional analysis and thereby im-
proving the student-teacher relationship. In-
deed, Fine, Covell, and Tracy (1978) have
demonstrated that TA training can engender
change in teacher attitudes and behavior.
*A copy of this instrument may be obtained
from the author.
Robert Fettgather, Ph.D., is an instructor in
psychiatric interviewing at Mission College,
Santa Clara, and in special education at West
Valley College, Saratoga, California. He is
also a consultant in private practice. Please
send reprint requests to Dr. Fettgather at 14899
Payton Avenue, San Jose, CA, USA 95124.
REFERENCES
Bercovici, S. (1983). Barriers to normalization - the re-
strictive management ofretarded persons. Baltimore: Un-
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Berne, E. (1%1). Transactional analysis in psychotherapy.
New York: Grove Press.
Brazilian TA Association Latin American TA Association International TA Association
1988 Summer Congress
Hotel Nacional
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Co-Sponsored by ALAT, UNAT, and ITAA
August 1988
Brazilian TA Association Latin American TA Association International TA Association
Vol. 17, No.2, April 1987
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Dusay, J. (1972). Egograms and the "constancy
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Fine, MJ., Covell, G., & Tracy, D.B. (1978). The ef-
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