The Effects of Metacognitive Strategy Training on the Acquisition and Generalization of Social Skills

Abstract

This study examined the effectiveness of a metacognitive strategy approach to train social skills to children with moderate mental retardation between the ages of 9 and 14 and with mental ages of 3 through 7. Training took place in the children's classrooms. Two approaches, one formal, the other informal, were used to train the participants. Results indicated that both experimental groups acquired the targeted skills and generalized the skills to another setting. Further, two comparison groups were used, children of an equal mental age without mental retardation and an equal chronological age group of children with mental retardation. On all variables tested, both experimental groups significantly outperformed the chronological age peers and scored equally as well as their mental age peers.