Sleep plays an active role in memory consolidation. Because children with Down syndrome (DS) and Williams syndrome (WS) experience significant problems with sleep and also with learning, we predicted that sleep-dependent memory consolidation would be impaired in these children when compared to typically developing (TD) children. This is the first…

This paper describes a social skills programme implemented to enhance the social competence of Primary-one students in order to ensure a smooth adjustment after transition from kindergarten to a formal school learning environment. The participants were 122 students (64 boys and 58 girls; mean age 6.17 years, SD = 0.29 years) newly enrolled in a…

Background: Dynamic testing has been proposed as a testing approach that is less disadvantageous for children who may be potentially subject to bias when undertaking conventional assessments. For example, those who encounter high levels of test anxiety, or who are unfamiliar with standardized test procedures, may fail to demonstrate their true…

Comparing deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children with their hearing peers in learning Chinese, the study tested the lexical quality hypothesis (Perfetti, 1992, 2007), which asserts the importance of building orthographic, phonological, and semantic connections in high-quality lexical representations. DHH children and hearing peers matched on…

This article describes two studies testing the efficacy of a commercial one-on-one cognitive training program (LearningRx) and its computer-based version (Brainskills) in laboratory and school settings. Study 1 tested Brainskills in a laboratory setting with 322 middle school students. Paired "t"-tests revealed significant gains on all…

Recent studies suggest that working memory training may benefit older adults; however, findings regarding training and transfer effects are mixed. The current study aimed to investigate the effects of a process-based training intervention in a diverse sample of older adults and explored possible moderators of training and transfer effects. For…

Working Memory (WM) has a central role in learning. It is suggested to be malleable and is considered necessary for several aspects of mathematical functioning. This study investigated whether work with an interactive computerised working memory training programme at school could affect the mathematical performance of young children. Fifty-seven…

Results of two studies using the Esper paradigm to determine development of rule application and discovery are reported. Subjects learned and generalized when rule and structure were provided, but there was little evidence of rule discovery. Manipulations of memory and attention facilitated learning, but only attention facilitated rule discovery.…