Teaching coin discrimination

Seven mildly mentally handicapped children aged between 6 and 11 years were taught to identify a 10p piece using an errorless learning procedure. These children each underwent 10 trials in which they were presented with two items. One item was a 10p piece, the other item varied depending on the current stage of the programme. The children had to identify the 10p piece and they were reinforced if they made the correct identification. A post‐test was then carried out — each child had to identify the three 10p pieces which were in a selection of nine coins placed in the child's hand. Six of the seven children learned the discrimination and the results (t = 7.10, df = 6, p < 0.001) show a significant difference between the error scores on the post‐test and pre‐test. Very few errors were made during training. These results support the validity and utility of the errorless learning procedure.