An investigation of factors influencing learning in the mentally retarded, and their use in the design of instructional materials. Interim report

The effects of prompting and confirmation on automated presentation of materials in discrimination learning were studied. Eight pairs of words or pictures were presented to 48 mentally retarded subjects (mean IQ 63, mean chronological age 163.4 months, mean mental age 103.3 months). Each subject's correct responses advanced the program and, in the prompting condition, the correct response was always underhned. The number of errors in the ornal learning was less under prompting (p.001). Treatment by c4der interaction was also significant (p.01) with better performance for prompting from word-picture order and for confirmation from picture-word order. Seven days later, prompting subjects committed fewer errors in relearning (p.001)...and-were superior in recognition (p.01). Confirmation was further tested under two new conditions: in one, praise and candy reinforced all correct responses; in the other, they were given only upon correct first choices during practice trials. The first group had.;:ewer errors (p.01) than the second or those in the analogous condition in the earlier experiment; and performance in th