Verbal rehearsal and selective attention in children with learning disabilities: A developmental lag

Abstract

To investigate the development of verbal rehearsal strategies and selective attention in learning disabled children, Hagen's Central-Incidental task was administered to younger learning disabled ( M CA = 8.68 years) and normal ( M CA = 8.62 years) boys in Experiment 1 and to intermediate ( M CA = 10.18 years) and older ( M CA = 13.48 years) learning disabled boys in Experiment 2. Also, in Experiment 2, an experimentally induced verbal rehearsal condition was included to determine its effects on serial recall and selective attention performance. In Experiment 1, the serial postion curve of the normals revealed both a primacy and a recency effect, whereas that of the learning disabled revealed a recency effect only. In Experiment 2, both the intermediate and the older learning disabled exhibited both primacy and recency effects under both standard and rehearsal conditions. A developmental analysis of central recall for the three learning disabled groups revealed constant age-related increases in overall central recall and in primacy recall. That the normals recalled more central, but not more incidental, information than the learning disabled in Experiment 1 suggests that the learning disabled are deficient in selective attention. Correlational findings suggest that the selective attention of the learning disabled improves with age. The results were interpreted as support for the hypothesis of a developmental lag in the learning disabled population.