[A Proposed Program to Improve of Short-Term Memory in Children with Mild Intellectual Disability and its Impact on Self-Esteem]

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Acknowledgement

I would first like to express my gratitude for my research supervisor, colleagues, peers and family whose immense and constant support has been a source of continuous guidance and inspiration.

Declaration

I [type your full first names & surname here], declare that the following dissertation/thesis and its entire content has been an individual, unaided effort and has not been submitted or published before. Furthermore, it reflects my opinion and take on the topic and is does not represent the opinion of the University.

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ABSTRACT

Fluid intelligence is considered as the ability to reason & to solve problems that influence learning in everyday life in both professional & educational settings. Therefore, a possibility to develop & improve this faculty in children with mild intellectual disabilities would be of highest interest for education. However, still being debated, many scientist as well as practitioners would agree that it is extremely difficult for these children to go beyond a certain level of reasoning & to develop & improve their intellectual functioning & short term memory. This goes together with the consideration of fluid intelligence as a trait with a strong hereditary component that is rather immune to training. Nevertheless, we present in this dissertation the theoretical rationale for successful short-term memory training as a process oriented training & as a remedial intervention tool for children with intellectual deficiencies. This rationale is based on a review of the research on the relationship between short-term memory & fluid intelligence & the research on far transfer effects in non trained tasks after training in populations with varying mental capacity. Features & constraints of the training tasks are described that are considered mandatory for a short-term memory training to be efficient.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgementii

Declarationiii

ABSTRACTiv

CHAPTER 01: INTRODUCTION1

Background1

Significance1

Aims and Objectives2

Research Questions2

Reliability and Validity2

Ethical Concern4

CHAPTER 02: LITERATURE REVIEW6

Basics of Intellectual Disabilities6

Self-concept and self-esteem in people with mild intellectual disabilities10

CHAPTER 03: METHODOLOGY19

Research Design19

Literature Search20

CHAPTER 04: DISCUSSION21

Relationship between short term memory & Intelligence21

References28

CHAPTER 01: INTRODUCTION

Background

Fluid intelligence is considered such an important factor in problem solving & learning in school & everyday settings that we certainly already would know if the answer would be “yes.” In this case, educational programs would use this possibility on a large-scale level, especially to develop & improve the situation for children with limited cognitive capacity. This is not the case, & there are other reasons that make it difficult to believe why one could come to a positive answer to our question.

Significance

The goal of short term memory training to develop & improve fluid intelligence in children with intellectual deficiencies is certainly an extremely challenging one. There are good reasons to systematically investigate what short term memory training could do in children with low cognitive capacities. Short term memory seems to be very important in many domains that clearly go beyond laboratory tasks. Even small increases in the efficiency of short term memory in children with mild intellectual disabilities could develop & improve their cognitive performance ...