Influence of training and performance IQ on the psychomotor skill of Down syndrome persons

Training effects on the psychomotor performance of Down syndrome individuals were assessed. 32 boys and 25 girls (6 to 16 years old) were divided randomly into trained or untrained groups and into either severely or moderately mentally retarded using their WISC-R Performance IQs. Analysis showed that the group who had pretest training opportunities to manipulate experimental materials performed significantly better than those without that training while the moderately retarded children did significantly better than the severely retarded ones. It appears that the performance of persons with Down syndrome could be developed through training.