Encoding of logical connective rules in learning-disabled children

Using a modified reception paradigm, normal and learning-disabled children were required to solve unidimensional, disjunctive, or conditional connectives under standard attending or enforced attending instructions. The major result was that enforced attending procedures facilitated solution of disjunctive and conditional concepts for normal children, while having minimal effects on rule attainment for the disabled. Within Sternberg's (1979) model, a number of subcomponent analyses were made on attribute combinations (e.g., TT, TF...), but only in the FF instance was there a difference between instructional conditions. Disabled were deficient in TT, TF, FF instances regardless of attending instructions. Results support a "reductive coding deficiency" in that learning-disabled children were unable to effectively utilize attentional instructions to encode certain attribute combinations.