Relationship between activity level and delay of reinforcement in the retarded

Abstract

Thirty mentally retarded children enrolled in a trainable special education class were given a simple two-choice discrimination task under a 12-second delay of reinforcement condition. While performing the task, the children were seated in a stabilimetric chair which recorded the gross activity of the child. The children were ranked from the highest to the lowest on activity as measured by the stabilimetric chair. The upper-quartile group (high active) was compared with the lower quartile (low active) on the number of correct responses given during the discrimination task. Although there was no significant difference in the mean CA and mean MA of the two groups, the low-active group produced significantly more correct responses in the 80 learning trials than did the high-active group.