To determine whether Downs Syndrome (DS) persons' recall could be improved by procedures that minimized auditory and visual distractions during auditory memory tasks, 16 DS, 12 non-DS mentally retarded and 12 non-mentally retarded persons (mean ages 16, 16, and 5 years, matched for mental age) listened to, looked at, and tried to remember digit sequences. Although the three groups did not differ in their recall of visually presented stimuli, DS subjects showed significantly poorer recall of auditorially presented stimuli than the other two groups (which did not differ). Furthermore, the poor auditory memory of DS subjects did not improve under testing conditions designed to minimize auditory and visual distractions. Results suggested that poor auditory short-term memory for verbal information is tied more closely to DS than to low intelligence in general, and is not caused by a special susceptibility of DS individuals to attentional distractors. (Author/CL)