Resumen de Vieillissement cognitif et retard mental. Une analyse transversale des performances intellectuelles d'adultes retardés mentaux
WAIS-R results of 559 adults with moderate and mild mental retardation aged from 20 to 54 years were collected and analysed by the means of hierarchical regression analyses. Analyses revealed the classical aging pattern observed in adults without mental retardation, that is, a stability of scores on the verbal scale and a decrease of scores on the performance scale. Likewise, even if scores of participants with mild mental retardation are logically superior to those of participants with moderate mental retardation, the aging pattern is nearly the same whatever the level of mental retardation. Indeed, even if they are significant, the interactions between age and IQ explain only a very small part of the variance of scores on the two WAIS-R scales. These results suggest that persons with mild or moderate mental retardation do not present a specific age decline of their cognitive skills. Several implications and limits of this study are discussed.
