Teaching number-word equivalences: a study of transfer.

The study was designed to determine whether retarded adolescents and nonretarded preschool children would generalize to other tasks involving printed number names if they were taught the number names in an auditory-receptive task. Four nonretarded preschool children and three retarded children participated. All children could count and use spoken and printed numerals. None of the children could adequately perform any task involving printed number words. After receiving training on an auditory-receptive task involving printed number words, all children improved their performance on tasks involving matching printed number words and numerals and printed number words and sets and improved in their ability to name printed number words.