TRAINING AND EXTENSION OF A MEMORY STRATEGY - EVIDENCE FOR UTILIZATION DEFICIENCIES IN THE ACQUISITION OF AN ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY IN HIGH-IQ AND LOW-IQ CHILDREN

143 9- and 10-year-old children were classified into high- and low-IQ groups and given 4 different sort/recall lists (baseline, training, ne ar [immediate] extension, far [1-week] extension) to assess training a nd extension of an organizational memory strategy. All children receiv ed categorized items of moderate typicality for Phases 1, 3, and 4. Fo r Phase 2, children were assigned to either a training or control grou p, with half of the children in each group receiving category typical items and the others category atypical items. Levels of recall, sortin g, and clustering were greater in Phase 2 for high-IQ children, for th e typical lists, and for trained children. Both the high- and low-IQ c hildren trained with typical items continued to show high levels of re call on the near extension phase. No group of subjects maintained high levels of recall after 1 week, although levels of sorting and/or clus tering on the extension trials remained high for all groups of subject s except the low-IQ control children. This latter pattern (elevated so rting/clustering with low levels of recall) is an indication of a util ization deficiency, a phase in strategy development when children use a strategy but gain little or no benefit in performance. The results p rovide evidence for IQ, training, and material effects in the demonstr ation of a utilization deficiency.