The effect of labels and instruction on concept attainment in the educable mentally retarded

The present experiment examined concept attainment in 80 educable mentally retarded and 80 normal boys of high and low mental age. The concept of an equilateral triangle was assessed following random exposure to one of four experimental conditions assessing the influence of verbal labels and instruction on the labels. A 2 × 2 × 4 multivariate analysis of variance revealed a significant effect of mental age; however, retarded and normal subjects did not differ in mean performance on any of the five dependent measures. The hypothesized treatment effect was significant at the formal level of concept attainment. The findings were discussed in terms of theoretical and educational implications.