Performance of Retarded and Normal Readers on a Visual-Auditory Learning Task with and without Reinforcers

Abstract

A visual-auditory associate learning task was administered to 38 retarded readers and 38 normal readers aged 7 to 8½ yr. Half the Ss in each group were reinforced for correct responses, and half received no reinforcement. Differences between groups were significant in the non-reinforced treatment but not in the reinforced treatment. The significant difference in the nonrein-forced treatment was due to the superior performance of the retarded readers. Differences between treatments were not significant over-all, but the normal readers did improve significantly with reinforcement. It was concluded that the simple learning of letter labels is not an important problem in reading retardation. In view of the differential response of the two groups to reinforcement, it was also concluded that learning experiments which compare educationally retarded and achieving groups should pay particular attention to treatment variables.