Efficiency of self-generated elaborations by EMR and nonretarded children.

Paired-associates learning tasks were given to 24 EMR and 24 nonretarded children. Subjects in each group received instructions to elaborate the noun pairs by embedding them in a sentence, and a qualitative analysis of the elaborations generated by the subjects was conducted by comparing levels of recall associated with the different types of elaboration. Elaborations that were conjunctive in nature, especially those which expressed thematic or functional relationships, were most effective overall. EMR children generated more inefficient elaborations than did nonretarded children.