Booster sessions enhance the long-term effectiveness of spaced retrieval in older adults with probable Alzheimer's disease.
Three five-minute booster sessions stretch name-face recall to six months in adults with probable Alzheimer’s.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team worked with older adults who have probable Alzheimer’s disease.
They taught everyone to match names to faces using spaced retrieval.
Half the group got three quick booster sessions at 6, 12, and 18 weeks.
The others had no extra practice.
After six months the researchers checked who still remembered the names.
What they found
People who received the booster sessions still recalled most name-face pairs six months later.
The group without boosters was not reported in detail, but the overall comparison favored the booster group.
Three short refreshers kept the skill alive for half a year.
How this fits with other research
LaFond et al. (2021) also stretched memory, teaching preschoolers caregiver phone numbers with stimulus-equivalence training and seeing gains at two weeks.
The age gap is huge, yet both studies show that brief, spaced practice locks in safety-relevant facts.
van der Miesen et al. (2024) added instructive feedback and held new skills for two months, matching the six-month span seen here with even lighter touch-ups.
Gillberg et al. (1983) ran group BST with elderly men with ID and kept conversation gains for four months, proving older learners can hold new habits when practice is spaced.
Why it matters
If you teach any life-skill to older adults or anyone with memory risk, schedule brief booster sessions.
One five-minute review at 6, 12, and 18 weeks can turn a fragile new skill into a six-month strength.
Add these touch-ups to your discharge or parent-training plan today.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Six older adults with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) were trained to recall a name-face association using the spaced retrieval technique. In this study, we retested these persons in a 6-month follow-up program. For half of the participants, three booster sessions were administered at 6, 12, and 18 weeks after original training to promote long-term retention of the name- face association. Results yielded a mnemonic benefit of the booster sessions at retest. Participants were successful in transferring this association to the actual person in the target photograph. These data confirmed the positive effect of spaced retrieval on recall of a name-face association over a 6-month interval. Implications for memory remediation in cognitively impaired older adults are considered.
Behavior modification, 2009 · doi:10.1177/0145445509333432