An attempt to improve auditory short-term memory in Down's syndrome individuals through reducing distractions

Down's syndrome (DS) individuals, relative to nonretarded individuals, have greater difficulty remembering brief sequences of verbal information presented auditorily. Previous research suggests at least two possible attentional explanations of their difficulty: They are especially susceptible to both auditory distraction and off-task glancing during laboratory tasks. DS, non-DS mentally retarded and nonretarded persons listened to, looked at, and attempted to remember sequences of digits. Although the three groups did not differ in their recall of visually-presented stimuli, DS subjects showed significantly poorer recall of auditorially-presented stimuli than the other two groups (which did not differ). Furthermore, the poor auditory memory of DS subjects did not improve under testing conditions designed to minimize auditory and visual distractions. It was suggested that poor auditory short-term memory for verbal information is tied more closely to Down's syndrome than to low intelligence and does not seem to be caused by a special susceptibility of Down's syndrome individuals to attentional distractors.