The purpose of the study was to determine whether significant differences exist between learning disabled and non-learning disabled children on memory performance for words learned in an incidental learning paradigm. Depth of processing and retrieval cue type were the treatment variables which controlled performance on a cued recall test of memory.Methodology. Thirty learning disabled and 30 non-learning disabled children in the fourth and fifth grades participated in the study. Seventy percent of the subjects were male and 30 percent were female. All subjects in the learning disabled group were tested for a severe discrepancy between potential and achievement in the area of reading prior to inclusion in the study. All subjects had IQ's not less than 1 standard deviation below the mean.Each subject was presented 32 stimulus words. All words were common concrete nouns with a reading level no greater than second grade. The stimulus words were encoded with congruent and non-congruent rhyming words and semantically congruent and non-congruent sentence frames. A cued recall test of memory was presented to each subject following the incidental learning activity. Rhyming and sentence frame cues were presented, and the subject was provided a 10 second opportunity to recall one of the stimulus words. The entire activity was presented on a microcomputer which also kept a record of the student's responses. The computer also generated a random presentation order, random ordered treatment condition for.Results. Non-learning disabled children recalled significantly more stimulus words than learning disabled children. Both groups performed significantly better on words encoded using deep level congruent semantic processing and cued with congruent semantic retrieval cues. At all levels, however, optimal performance occurred when retrieval cue type matched encoding level.Conclusions. Differential memory performance in learning disabled and non-learning disabled children can be controlled in incidental learning activities. Depth of processing affects differential memory performance. In all cases words cued with retrieval cues of the same level of processing are recalled more efficiently than those cued with recall cues of another level of processing each stimulus word, and a random ordered memory test.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/181706 |
| Date | January 1987 |
| Creators | Walker, Stephen C. |
| Contributors | Poteet, James A. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | 3, vi, 144 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
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