The Efficacy of Rehearsal Strategy on Auditory Short-Term Memory of Educable 5 to 8 Years Old with Down Syndrome

One of the problems of children with Down syndrome is their low performance on retention of information and recall of them from memory. The present study aimed to determine the efficacy of rehearsal strategy on auditory short-term memory of educable 5 to 8 years old children with Down syndrome. In this quasi-experimental study, 24 children (14 boys and 10 girls) were selected in convenience from Iranian Down Syndrome Charity Association and evaluated by Raven’s Intelligence Progressive Matrices. Then, children were assigned to experimental and control groups randomly (each group contains 12 individuals). Experimental group participated in 8 group sessions (two sessions per week, each lasting 30 minutes) and trained by rehearsal strategy. All subjects were evaluated by Expressive-Auditory Memory Sequence Test before and after intervention sessions. Data were analyzed by multiple analysis of covariance. The results of analysis of covariance showed that rehearsal strategy have led to increase of digit span, word span and auditory short-term memory (p<0.01) in experimental group compared to control group. It can be concluded that rehearsal strategy training is an effective method on promotion of digit span, word span and auditory short-term memory of children with Down syndrome and implies important consequences for their education.