Comparison of two procedures for fostering the development of the object construct

To determine the extent to which training can effect acquisition and retention of the object construct, we exposed 21 severely mentally retarded individuals to training or control conditions for about 10 minutes per day on 8 days. There were two training procedures: one that seemed typical of previous efforts to foster the object construct and a second that differed primarily in the size of the steps in the systematic chain of tasks required of the subjects. Both procedures affected acquisition significantly and equally but neither appeared to result in long-term retention.