Sandra Smidt takes the reader on a journey through the key concepts of Jerome Bruner, a significant figure in the field of early education whose work has spanned almost a century. His wide-ranging and innovative principles of early learning and teaching are unpicked here using everyday language and the links between his ideas and those of other…

Purpose: Children with specific language impairment (SLI) demonstrate significant language impairments despite normal-range hearing and nonverbal IQ. Many of these children also show marked deficits in working memory (WM) abilities. However, the theoretical and clinical characterization of the association between WM and language limitations in SLI…

A theoretical situation-person-interactions model of learning and performance is presented, and applications of the model through the Instrumental Language Functions (ILF) approach with preschool normal and older variously handicapped children and adults are described. The model is graphically depicted and discussed according to such aspects as…

Reviews four current approaches to play behavior of young children and concludes that using forms of play such as puppets and body action movements to rehearse story content is effective in aiding aural language comprehension and recall in young children. (FL)

This paper discusses five language roots of reading: phonology, syntax, semantics, short-term and long-term memory, and auditory segmenting. Teachers are urged to focus early school experiences toward development of these five skills to reduce the incidence of reading difficulties. Specific teaching suggestions are offered. (Author/DB)

Describes recent research findings in the area of neurobiology and its relationship to learning and memory. The article provides definitions of associative and nonassociative learning, identifies essential memory trace circuits of the mammalian brain, and discusses some neural mechanisms of learning. (TW)

The manual is designed to provide teachers of hearing impaired students with a criterion referenced record of the student's existing skills. The record is intended to progress with the child through the elementary grades and to be used for developing individual profiles and plans. The manual consists of forms with columns for recording the…