Assessments of Specific Behavioral Deficits.

The article describes two experimental assessments on specific behavioral deficits. Investigators in the fields of psychopathology and mental retardation suggest that there are advantages in classification based on specific behavioral deficits relative to traditional diagnosis and relative to classification based on global indicators such as IQ score. The two assessments are: tolerance for intermittent reinforcement and discrimination learning. Results based on the two experimental assessment differentiated satisfactorily among the subjects.