Abstract
The effect of serial position and word association values upon retention by Mongoloid (Down's syndrome) and non-Mongoloid was studied. Twenty-nine retardates with an MA range of 2. 6 to 5. 3 were divided into three groups of nine or ten subjects each, corresponding to each of familial (FG), epileptic (EG), and Down's syndrome (DG) retarded children group. Their performances were compared with those made by normal children group (NG) of ten subjects (Table la, b). The methods of reconstruction, retained members, and paired-association by the presentation of pictures vere employed. Each stimulus picture was presented for two seconds. The subjects were instructed to read the stimulus cards aloud as they appeared by the paired-association method. Recall interval per trial was ten seconds and then Ss were to recall the cards for a duration of forty seconds. The names of the materials were well known to each of the Ss before the onset of this experiment. The results showed that: (a) the effects ofinitial serial position by reconstruction method and of last serial position by retained members method were significant on mentally retarded children's retentive process as well as the normals (Table 2, 3., Fig. la, b): (b) by the repetitive reproduction method the delay of recall had a significant effect upon the short-term retention; especially there was a great difference between zero second delay interval and sixty seconds delay interval with DG and EG (Table 4, 5): (c) word associative strength had a significant effect on the retardates' short-term retention process at the ten seconds retention interval for high and low association values (Table 6). The implications of the above findings are that retarded children with Down's syndrome were relatively more handicapped than the familial retarded or the normals on the level of performace, but that the factor of immediate feedback and the use of meaningful materials should play an important role in the retention with Mongoloid as well as non-Mongoloid.
