Memory for source information in children with learning disabilities

Abstract

Based on Johnson and Raye's (1981) reality monitoring framework, this study exmined whether two forms of source monitoring ability develop in learning disabled (LD) and nondisabled (NLD) children in a comparable manner. LD and NLD children from grades 2 and 6 were each assigned to one of two acquisition conditions in a sentence completion task: “Say-Think” (internal source monitoring) or “Say-Listen” (reality monitoring). Consistent with the reality monitoring model, internal source monitoring was more difficult than reality monitoring for all children. Sixth graders were superior to second graders, and NLD children were better than LD children in both internal source monitoring and reality monitoring. In addition, a measure of recognition memory produced results that paralleled those of the source monitoring task. The results were interpreted as evidence for the hypothesis that LD children possess a general deficit in remembering the source of memories containing verbal information.