Overcorrection of spelling deficits in moderately mentally retarded children.
Overcorrection plus praise teaches spelling to kids with moderate ID and the skill sticks for at least six months.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Four kids with moderate intellectual disability were taught to spell ten new words.
Each child got overcorrection for wrong letters plus praise for correct letters.
The teacher ran a multiple-baseline across students in a special-ed classroom.
What they found
All four kids learned every word within a few days.
Six months later they still spelled the words correctly without extra practice.
How this fits with other research
Meyer et al. (1987) used the same design and population one year later and also saw big, lasting gains in telephone skills.
Singh et al. (1991) tested spelling with learning-disabled students and found plain rehearsal worked as well as fancy task variation—no extra boost.
Paul et al. (1987) showed classwide peer tutoring beat teacher lessons for typical first-graders, but A et al. used tighter error correction for kids with ID and still got strong results.
Why it matters
If you teach spelling in a special-ed classroom, pair brief overcorrection with quick praise.
The combo locks the skill in place for months, so you spend less time on review later.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The present study focused on the acquisition and retention of spelling by moderately mentally retarded children who had not been taught any spelling skills as a part of their academic curriculum. Overcorrection plus positive reinforcement was used as the teaching technique with four children in a multiple baseline design. During training the teacher pronounced the target word and the child wrote the word, saying aloud each letter as it was written. If the word was spelled incorrectly, the following procedure was undertaken: The teacher pronounced the word again, the subject pronounced the word, the teacher said aloud each letter of the word, and the subject said aloud each letter of the word as he or she wrote the word correctly. This sequence was repeated five times following a misspelled word. The results showed that all four children rapidly learned to spell the target words and maintained correct spelling of the words during the six-month follow-up period.
Behavior modification, 1986 · doi:10.1177/01454455860103006