Material-Appropriate Processing: Implications for Remediating Recall Deficits in Students with Learning Disabilities

Research with nondisabled learners has shown that the effectiveness of encoding activities depends on the type of material to which such activities are applied. We review the material-appropriate processing approach (McDaniel & Einstein, 1989) and examine the extent to which this framework might be used to help anticipate and explain the mnemonic effects of elaborative encoding tasks and study adjuncts for less able learners. For less able learners, elaborative tasks that require processing that is also invited by the material seem to enhance recall, but elaborative tasks that require processing not invited by the material produce little or no enhancement in recall. Apparently, less able learners are not capable of spontaneously exploiting the affordances of the to-be-learned material without appropriate study instructions or adjuncts. Further, unlike nondisabled learners, less able learners do not seem to benefit from study instructions that require types of processing not afforded by the material.