Diagnostic overshadowing and professional experience with mentally retarded persons

Possible associations between professional experience with mentally retarded people and diagnostic overshadowing were evaluated. In a 3 X 2 factorial experiment, psychologists at state developmental disabilities facilities (high-experience group), psychologists at state mental health facilities (moderate-experience group), and clinical graduate students (low-experience group) rated a case history of a person with schizophrenia on 11 scales of psychopathology. For approximately half of the subjects within each group, the client was mentally retarded in addition to schizophrenic; for the remaining subjects, the client had average intelligence. Professional experience was associated with diagnostic ratings but not with overshadowing. We concluded that diagnostic overshadowing is unrelated to a broad range of professional experience with retarded people.