Abstract
[A Stages-of-Learning Analysis of Mildly Mentally Retarded Children’s Memorization Task Performance]
This article reports a free recall experiment in which a new stages-of-learning model was used to examine the effects of a picture-word manipulation and of chronological age on long-term memory storage and retrieval processes in mildly mentally retarded (MMR) children. The results show that MMR children in each of the three age levels benefited from the presentation in pictorial format, that is, the values of storage and retrieval parameters were, in general, higher for pictures than for words. Furthermore, regardless of age and materials these children exhibited perfect retention of information between the first and second test trials. From a developmental standpoint, the most important findings were 1. Some improvements (like those in storage aspects) took place rather late, that is, they were only shown by 14-year-olds compared to the two younger age groups, and 2. Instead of improvements as a function of increasing chronological age our SS showed a deterioration in the acquisition of the so-called annex-storage algorithmic-retrieval operations. However, one of the post-storage algorithmic-retrieval operations, as well as the majority of heuristic-retrieval operations, developed positively. In the discussion comparisons are made with memorization task data in studies on 8-11 year-old normally learning children. A developmental-delay theory is used to explain the MMR children’s different developmental trends in the acquisition of algorithmic-retrieval operations.