Effects of Errorless versus Error- full Practice and Awake versus Asleep States on Ball Throwing Skill Learning in Children with Intellectual Disability: Specificity of Practice Hypothesis

The purpose of this study was to examine the interactional effects of errorless versus error-full learning and awake versus asleep states on ball throwing skill learning in children with intellectual disability with specificity of practice hypothesis.
The participants of this study were 33 children with intellectual disability in age range of 6-8 year old. The participants were categorized based on pretest into three experimental groups, namely, errorless learning, error-full learning, and specific practice group. They performed ball throwing accuracy task by shooting tennis balls with the right hand towards the goal disk on the wall in 12 acquisition sessions. Then, they did the retention test. The test was done in two and 24 hour intervals after the last training session.
The results of means showed that in the first retention test i.e., before night sleep, the participants in the specific practice group were more accurate than those in the error-full learning group (p The performance of errorless learning group after 24 hours acquisition session, confirmed the benefits of errorless learning as well as facilitating the memory consolidation process.