The Severe Nature of Verbal Learning Deficits in Preschool Down's Syndrome (Mongoloid) Children. Research Report No. 69

Twenty 3-year-old, home reared, Down's Syndrome children and eight 3-year-old normal children were studied to examine the verbal learning characteristics of Down's Syndrome children in typical preschool learning tasks. Prior to the study, research on characteristics of verbal learning deficits in retarded individuals and on verbal skill training was reviewed. A hierarchy of teaching strategies (verbal prompt, verbal instruction, imitation plus verbal instruction, and manual guidance plus verbal instruction) was used in teaching 16 self-help and preacademic tasks. Approximately 40-50 percent of the tasks were not solved by Down's Syndrome Ss with verbal prompting plus verbal instruction alone. Only 14 percent of the tasks were not solved by normal Ss at the same levels of instruction. Despite additional trials, which were enriched with verbal instruction and made more direct through the use of imitation and manual guidance strategies, Down's Syndrome Ss failed to acquire task solution more than 25 percent of the time. Verbal learning deficits seemed to lie largely in the auditory or integration phases of the task and only minimally in the motor output phase. (GW)