The ideology and science of punishment in mental retardation

The conflict between those who view aversive therapeutic interventions from an ideological perspective and those who view them from a scientific perspective was examined. Special attention was devoted to the most detailed review of punishment procedures in mental retardation that has been written from an ideological perspective, a monograph published by The Association for Persons With Severe Handicaps (Guess, Helmstetter, Turnbull, & Knowlton, 1986). The monograph was found to suffer from a number of serious conceptual and methodological flaws that militate against accepting its conclusions as bases for research and social policy in mental retardation. The conclusion was drawn that some of those who reject aversive therapeutic interventions do so out of a poor understanding of behavioral science and a primarily ideological frame of reference.