Mnemonic Generalization Training with Learning Disabled Adolescents

Abstract

This investigation was intended to determine whether intensive generalization training specific to the development of complex mnemonic strategies would facilitate learning disabled (LD) students' ability to transfer the strategy to independent use. Fifty-six LD adolescents were randomly assigned to one of three individually administered conditions: mnemonic generalization, mnemonic generalization combined with attribution training, or a rehearsal condition. One-to-one training sessions covered strategy usage across a variety of content domains, including vocabulary learning, science, and social studies. Training and assessment occurred across three phases. Phase one emphasized training in condition-specific strategies, phase two employed prompted transfer training, while phase three assessed unprompted generalization at 1-day and 2-week delay intervals. Recall was assessed across conditions during all three phases: training, prompted transfer, and unprompted transfer. Results revealed statistically significant recall differences favoring the mnemonic conditions on prompted transfer days 2 and 3, and the 2-week delayed unprompted transfer task. No significant differences were found between the two mnemonic instructional conditions. Implications for teachers are discussed.