Is errorless learning an effective strategy for a procedural memory task?

Errorless learning has been demonstrated to be an effective strategy for the cognitive rehabilitation of people with memory impairment. This study aimed to determine whether errorless learning is an effective strategy for teaching a complex procedure. Cognitive impairment has been tentatively linked with outcome after rehabilitation for lower limb amputation. Addressing this impairment may improve outcome. The aim of this study was to determine whether using an errorless learning approach would be beneficial for individuals who are learning how to put on their prosthetic limb. Thirty participants from a prosthetic clinic (WestMARC) were randomly assigned to an intervention (n = 15) or control group (n = 15). Results suggest that errorless learning is beneficial in terms of increasing the number of correct steps recalled from a fitting sequence (Mann-Whitney U = 28; p = 0.000, 2-tailed) compared to the control group. In addition, the errorless learning group made fewer errors during the fitting sequence compared to the control group (Mann-Whitney U = 39; p = 0.002, 2-tailed). The findings suggest that errorless learning is a beneficial approach to use when individuals are learning a procedural memory task