Highlights
- •Pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) often leads to learning and memory problems.
- •Retrieval practice is a promising learning intervention for pediatric TBI patients.
- •Randomized controlled trials of retrieval practice after TBI are the next step.
Abstract
Objective
To investigate whether retrieval practice (RP) is a more effective memory strategy
than restudy in children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury (TBI).
Design
Three × two within-subjects experiment: 3 (learning condition: massed restudy [MR],
spaced restudy [SR], retrieval practice [RP]) × 2 (stimulus type: verbal paired associates
[VPAs] and face-name pairs [FNPs]). The dependent measure was delayed recall of VPAs
and FNPs.
Setting
Subacute pediatric neurorehabilitation center.
Participants
Pediatric survivors of TBI (N=15) aged 8 to 16 years with below-average memory.
Intervention
During RP, participants were quizzed on to-be-learned information (VPAs and FNPs)
shortly after it was presented, such that they practiced retrieval during the learning
phase. MR consisted of repeated restudy (tantamount to cramming). SR consisted of
restudy trials separated in time (ie, distributed learning).
Main Outcome Measures
Delayed recall of 24 VPAs and 24 FNPs after a 25-minute delay. VPAs and FNPs were
equally divided across 3 learning conditions (16 per condition).
Results
There was a large main effect of learning condition on delayed recall (P<.001; ηp2=.84), with better mean recall of VPAs and FNPs studied through RP (6.23±1.39) relative
to MR (3.60±1.53; P<.001) and SR (4.77±1.39; P<.001). Moreover, RP was the single best learning strategy for every participant.
Conclusions
Memory problems and related academic learning difficulties are common after pediatric
TBI. Herein, we identify RP as a promising and simple strategy to support learning
and improve memory in children and adolescents with TBI. Our experimental findings
were quite robust and set the stage for subsequent randomized controlled trials of
RP in pediatric TBI.
Keyword
List of abbreviations:
FNP (face-name pair), MR (massed restudy), 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
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References
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: October 10, 2014
Footnotes
Supported by Children's Specialized Hospital.
Disclosures: none.
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
