Advance Organizers And Listening Comprehension In Retarded And Nonretarded Individuals

Abstract

Subjects classified as educably mentally retarded (64) and their nonretarded mental age comparison group (64) heard two stories. After each story, performance was assessed on comprehension. All subjects were randomly assigned to one of four treatments: (1) knowledge (subjects were told concepts critical to processing each story); (2) purpose statements (subjects were told to listen for specific characters and events); (3) knowledge plus purpose statements; and (4) control (no information). Through various types of advance organizers, information was provided to subjects in treatments 1-3 before one story and during the other. The order of information presentation (before story vs. during story) was counterbalanced so that half of the subjects in each treatment group received the before condition first, and the other half received the during condition first. The comprehension measures included comprehension of central, noncentral, and implied story content. For the comprehension measures, a 2×4×2×2×3 analysis of variance was performed. Factors were: (1) population (retarded us. nonretarded); (2) treatment (knowledge, purpose statements, knowledge plus purpose statements, control); (3) placement of information (before vs. during); (4) order of placement (before first vs. during first); and (5) question type (central, noncentral and implied). Results indicated that subjects who were not retarded performed better than subjects who were retarded. Comprehension of central questions was significantly better than comprehension of noncentral questions, which was significantly higher than comprehension of implied questions. Results indicated that among all subjects comprehension scores were significantly higher in the knowledge plus purpose statement condition than in any of the other experimental conditions.

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