The past, present and future of errorless learning in memory rehabilitation

This chapter focuses on the development of Errorless (EL) learning, which emerged from two theoretical backgrounds: namely EL discrimination learning from behavioural psychology, and implicit memory from cognitive psychology. EL learning was soon applied, successfully, to helping people with developmental learning difficulties. EL learning is not only suitable for reducing memory problems; the principles have been used to teach skills to people with dyspraxia and to teach motor tasks to people with Parkinson's disease. Several reports have also shown that people with schizophrenia can benefit from EL learning, including learning practical vocational skills. Baddeley A. D and Wilson B. A believed the efficacy of EL learning as a teaching technique for memory-impaired people was beneficial because amnesic patients had to rely on implicit memory, a system that is poor at eliminating errors. There are, however, alternative explanations: for example, the EL advantage could be due to residual explicit memory processes or to a combination of both implicit and explicit systems