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DISCRIMINATION SHIFT LEARNING AND RESPONSE INHIBITION OF MODERATELY AND SEVERELY MENTALLY RETARDED AND NON‐RETARDED CHILDREN
Author(s) -
Umetani Tadao,
Kitao Satoshi,
Katada Akiyoshi
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
journal of intellectual disability research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.941
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1365-2788
pISSN - 0964-2633
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2788.1985.tb00331.x
Subject(s) - mentally retarded , psychology , special education , citation , gerontology , library science , medicine , developmental psychology , mathematics education , computer science
Simple two-choice discrimination shift learning performances of 20 moderately and severely mentally retarded children were compared with those of 20 non-retarded ones. A learning task arranged with a pair of yellow circle and green triangle slides was used. No difference was found between mentally retarded and non-retarded children in the learning rate of initial discrimination, but the mentally retarded attained shift discrimination more slowly than the non-retarded. Also, the extinction of initial positive responses in mentally retarded children was slower than in non-retarded children. It was suggested that the difficulty of discrimination shift in severely subnormal children is due to failure to suppress a previously learned response to prior positive cues.