Effects of Causal Structure on Immediate and Delayed Story Recall by Children with Mild Mental Retardation, Children with Learning Disabilities, and Children without Disabilities

Abstract

Children with mild mental retardation, children with learning disabilities, and children without disabilities read and recalled a story immediately and after a delay of 4 or 5 days. The effects of the story's causal structure on recall were compared for the three groups. Although children with mild mental retardation recalled less than the other groups, the effects of causal structure were similar across the three groups. At both retention intervals, all groups recalled content better if it was on the story's causal chain than if it was off the causal chain, and statements with many causal connections better than statements with few causal connections. All groups were sensitive to the causal structure of the story. The only notable difference was that the children with mild retardation forgot content on the causal chain somewhat faster than content off the causal chain, whereas the other two groups showed the reverse pattern.