COMPREHENSION MONITORING SKILLS OF ADULTS WITH MENTAL-RETARDATION

The ability of 30 adults with mild and moderate levels of mental retar dation to monitor their comprehension while performing a direction-fol lowing task was examined. Subjects were ''employed'' to aid the invest igator in compiling objects for gift bags. The task consisted of 60 di rections (e.g., ''Give me a blue pencil''), of which 6 contained troub le sources (ambiguous directions, unintelligible words, and compliance problems). Each subject's response to the directions involving troubl e sources was scored to determine if the subject (a) demonstrated effe ctive comprehension monitoring (as indicated by an immediate awareness of the problem and effective attempt to rectify the problem), (b) req uested clarification after attempting to comply with the direction and being unable to do so, (c) demonstrated ineffective comprehension mon itoring (as indicated by an awareness of the problem but an ineffectiv e means of dealing with it), or (d) showed no awareness of the trouble source. The ability of subjects to monitor comprehension varied with type of trouble source. Ambiguous trouble sources were the most diffic ult for the subjects to detect, and compliance-problem trouble sources were the most frequently identified.