Abstract
Objective
To investigate whether retrieval practice (RP) improves delayed recall after short
and long delays in survivors of severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) relative to massed
restudy (MR) and spaced restudy (SR).
Design
3(learning condition: MR, SR, RP)×2(delayed recall: 30min, 1wk) within-subject experiment.
Setting
Nonprofit medical rehabilitation research center.
Participants
Memory-impaired (<5th percentile) survivors of severe TBI (N=10).
Intervention
During RP, patients are quizzed on to-be-learned information shortly after it is presented,
such that patients practice retrieval. MR consists of repeated restudy (ie, cramming).
SR consists of restudy trials separated in time (ie, distributed learning).
Main Outcome Measures
Forty-eight verbal paired associates (VPAs) were equally divided across 3 learning
conditions (16 per condition). Delayed recall for one half of the VPAs was assessed
after 30 minutes (8 per condition) and for the other half after 1 week (8 per condition).
Results
There was a large effect of learning condition after the short delay (P<.001, η2=.72), with much better recall of VPAs studied through RP (46.3%) relative to MR (12.5%)
and SR (15.0%). This large effect of learning condition remained after the long delay
(P=.001, η2=.56), as patients recalled 11.3% of the VPAs studied through RP, but nothing through
MR (0.0%) and only 1.3% through SR. That is, RP was essentially the only learning
condition to result in successful recall after 1 week, with most patients recalling
at least 1 VPA.
Conclusions
The robust effect of RP among TBI survivors with severe memory impairment engenders
confidence that this strategy would work outside the laboratory to improve memory
in real-life settings. Future randomized controlled trials of RP training are needed.
Keywords
List of abbreviations:
MR (massed restudy), RCT (randomized controlled trial), RP (retrieval practice), SR (spaced restudy), TBI (traumatic brain injury), VPA (verbal paired associate)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Archives of Physical Medicine and RehabilitationAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- How common are the “common” neurologic disorders?.Neurology. 2007; 68: 326-337
- Residual complaints of patients two years after severe head injury.J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1985; 48: 21-28
Rohling ML, Faust ME, Beverly B, Demakis G. Effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation following acquired brain injury: a meta-analytic re-examination of Cicerone et al.'s (2000, 2005) systematic reviews. Neuropsychology 2009;23:20-39.
- The critical importance of retrieval for learning.Science. 2008; 319: 966-968
- Retrieval practice improves memory in multiple sclerosis: clinical application of the testing effect.Neuropsychology. 2010; 24: 267-272
- Retrieval practice: a simple strategy for improving memory after traumatic brain injury.J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2010; 16: 1147-1150
- Retrieval practice is a robust memory aid for memory-impaired patients with MS.Mult Scler. 2013; 19: 1943-1946
- Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: a review and quantitative synthesis.Psychol Bull. 2006; 132: 354-380
Cicerone KD, Langenbahn DM, Braden C, et al. Evidence-based cognitive rehabilitation: updated review of the literature from 2003 through 2008. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 2011;92:519-30.
- The rehabilitation of hemianopic dyslexia.Nat Rev Neurol. 2009; 5: 427-437
Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 13, 2013
Footnotes
Supported by the Kessler Foundation and Children's Specialized Hospital.
No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has conferred or will confer a benefit on the authors or on any organization with which the authors are associated.
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
