Current trends in programmed instruction for the mentally retarded

Programmed instruction is new to some, promising to many puzzling to others, and perhaps a little frightening or alarming to all, but one thing is certain: it is being talked about. Recently it made its initial impact on the educational horizon as one of the most promising approaches to the particular learning problems of the mentally retarded child. However, the majority of teachers and parents of retarded children know very little about this new educational technology and much of the research with retarded children has not been widely publicized. Therefore, this paper is directed toward discussing programmed instruction as an educational method and has two objectives: (1) To evaluate the utility and feasibility of programmed instruction with a mentally retarded population. (a) To explore the effectiveness of programmed procedures, i.e., to compare the achievement of mentally retarded children using teaching machines and programmed textbooks to equated groups being taught the same material by conventional special class techniques