The problem of teaching relational discriminations to people with mental retardation is examined. The limitations of several commonly used teaching procedures are discussed and alternative approaches to simple-discrimination learning are described. Results of two preliminary single-subject studies demonstrating the feasibility of these approaches…

Eighty-two educable and trainable mentally retarded children (6-18 years old) judged whether a series of visual stimuli matched a standard. With each judgment the investigator verbalized "right" or "wrong" and then provided full feedback of cue similarities and differences that supported each judgment. Trained Ss exhibited total intradimensional…

Efficiency of three discrimination training procedures was compared for 21 mentally handicapped children. Results showed that two programmed techniques (graded stimulus and prompt fading) did not differ significantly, but both were significantly superior to trial-and-error learning. (Author/CL)

The article reviews and analyzes existing assistance procedures with moderately to severely developmentally disabled students. Procedures considered include those performed prior to responding and those involved with fading assistance. Implications for selecting assistance procedures are examined. (CL)

Children with mental retardation are particularly prone to failure on relational tasks such as oddity and match-to-sample, suggesting a differential sensitivity to relational information. This paper reports on several studies in which characteristics of stimulus arrays were enhanced. Results demonstrated the theoretical and practical significance…