Article

The principle of errorless learning has proven efficacy in helping adults and
older adults with acquired memory impairment learn novel information. However,
surprisingly few studies have investigated its efficacy in children. The present
study addresses this omission in the literature, investigating the effectiveness
of two forms of errorless learning - the established method, in which the
examiner provides responses during learning, and a self-generation method, in
which learners produce their own responses - each relative to the standard
baseline of trial-and-error learning, in young people with acquired brain injury
(ABI, n = 15) and non-injured controls (n = 15). Participants learned different
word lists in each condition and their memory was tested after distraction and,
subsequently, after a 20-minute delay. Not surprisingly, controls performed
better than the ABI group. However, while there was no effect of learning
condition for controls, in the ABI group memory performance was significantly
better under errorless conditions. In contrast to findings in the adult
literature, there was no difference in the efficacy of the two errorless methods,
suggesting that self-generation was no better than standard examiner-generation.
This study extends upon previous research to provide the first demonstration of
the effectiveness of errorless methods in a group of young people with ABI.

Langue : ANGLAIS