Teaching Skill Generalization: Metacognitive and Mnemonic Training of Educable Mentally Retarded Children

Although previous research has shown that EMR children can be trained to use mnemonic techniques, they are unable to spontaneously transfer this training to dissimilar tasks. In the present study, 18 EMR children were divided into two equal groups. The IM group was trained to use a mnemonic/meta-cognitive strategy for a PA task, and the C group received no training. After training, both groups were tested for their recall of PA (Maintenance), MA (Near Generalization), and FR (Far Generalization) items immediately after training (Immediate Test) and two weeks later (Delayed Test). The IM group recalled significantly more and studied longer for the Maintenance and Near Generalization tasks, but neither group performed differently on the Far Generalization task. Neither group's performance or study times changed significantly between the Immediate and Delayed tests. The IM group used the trained strategy for Maintenance and Near Generalization tasks, but they tended to discard the use of the strategy for the Far Generalization task. However, it was noted that two IM Ss demonstrated Far Generalization and used the strategy for all tasks. The implications of this study for educational applications and future research considerations were discussed.