Effects of rehearsal activity and level of word processing on learning disabled and normal readers' free recall.

This study investigated the relationship of stimulus encoding and rehearsal activity in accounting for learning disabled readers' deficient recall performance. Learning disabled and nondisabled readers from ages 8 and 10.6 were compared on free recall of semantically and phonemically related words under two types of rehearsal conditions, one-item and multiitem repetitions. Consistent with previous work, developmental differences occurred in word recall with semantically related word lists being recalled more often than phonemically related ones. Regardless of age and rehearsal activity, learning disabled readers were inferior in recall to nondisabled readers. For both reading groups, the influence of the type of processing and rehearsal activity were not independent. That is, an interaction occurred between level of processing and rehearsal activity. The results were construed as evidence for deficient elaborative rehearsal and semantic encoding in learning disabled readers.