Differential outcomes and discrimination learning in children and adults with Down Syndrome

The differential outcomes effect (DOE)refers to the increase in speed of acquisition, terminal accuracy, and persistence of working memory that occurs in conditional discrimination learning when two o more stimuli are correlated with a particular outcome (for a review see Goeters, Blakely, & Poling, 1992). The main aim of this experiment was the study of the differential outcomes procedure as an useful tool to enhance discriminative learning in children and adults with Down Syndrome. The results showed that 24 children and adults with Down Syndrome performed significantly better when they received differential outcomes for correct choices.