Question
What is spaced-retrieval? How often should you see a client for spaced-retrieval training?
Answer
What is spaced-retrieval? Spaced-retrieval refers to the practice of recalling information over progressively longer intervals of time. That is the “spaced” in the retrieval. You are going to try to have a person practice remembering a piece of information, and you are gradually going to make the time intervals longer. You are spacing out the retrieval of the information.
This may seem like a newer technique, but it is been around for quite a while. It was first noted by some British researchers, Landauer and Bjork in 1978. They were working with students in the university setting and teaching face/name learning. They found that spacing the retrieval of the names of the pictures that they were showing to the students was much more effective than the typical rehearsal strategies that we use. It got written up, was used for a while, and then it was lost in the journals for a bit.
In the mid-80s, Dr. Camp, who was our former director at Myers Research Institute, a psychologist and gerontologist, really started to look at how we could use the technique with the dementia population. Since about 1988, this has been researched and studied to be used with rehab populations. We are looking at a good 20 to 25 years of research, which is sometimes surprising to people who have never heard of the technique. What we found is that it can be very effective in helping people to learn and remember information.
How often should you see a client? Of course this varies from client to client, but what we found is that the number of sessions really impacts that. Clearly the more sessions that the person has in a row, the more quickly they are going to learn it. If you are seeing them four days a week, they are probably going to meet their goal much more quickly than someone who is only being seen twice a week. Their level of cognitive impairment can also impact that. We found in the studies at Myers Research that anyone who had above say a 6 on the MMSE was someone who did quite well with spaced-retrieval. People who scored below a 6 tended to have a little bit more impairment and had more trouble learning and retaining the information. That is a good rule of thumb to go by, but I would not use that as a deterrent from trying with patients who might be more cognitively impaired. You never know and so it is worth doing the screening.
Also the number goals that are being addressed using spaced retrieval can impact training. If you are doing say 3, 4, or 5 goals using it, that may impact how quickly they are able to retain information for all of those goals. You want to try to see the patient a little more frequently if you can, and maybe only work on 2 to 3 things with different spaced retrieval prompts. That is what I have found. When I was doing this in a long-term care setting, I was only seeing my patients three days a week and I still saw some really great retention. Basically in one of the studies that we did, we saw people retaining information for up to six months after they completed therapy. Those are some really great numbers to be able to share with your facility, rehab directors and so forth. It is something that can really have some long-standing results.
Editor’s note: This Ask the Expert was adapted from the article ‘Improving Memory Using the Spaced Retrieval Technique for Occupational Therapists’. The complete article can be accessed here.
