Studies reported showed retarded children less inattentive and distractible than the literature has suggested, and suggested that increased non-task orientations (glancing) in the presence of an adult might best be interpreted as information seeking rather than evidence of distractibility. (Author/KW)

The effects of five elaboration conditions on the paired associate learning of 50 educable mentally retarded children (mean age 9 years) were investigated. Four of the conditions were included in a two factor design (type of relation x familiarity); the fifth (nonsense condition) was included as an outside control. Ten children were tested in each…

The effect of same sex and cross sex experimenters on the attentive behaviors and learning of 64 educable mentally retarded children were examined under two conditions: experimenter not present; and experimenter present and providing cues relevant to task mastery. Female Ss were found to perform significantly better with male experimenters than…

Effects of same- and cross-sex experimenters on attentive behavior and learning of 64 educable retarded children (mean age 10 years) were examined in two conditions: experimenter not present (not in) or experimenter present and providing cues relevant to task mastery (relevant cue). (Author)

The effects of five verbal elaboration conditions on the paired associate learning of 50 elementary-aged educable mentally retarded children were investigated. Four of the conditions, crossing functional and positional relations in familiar or unfamiliar events, were included in a two-factor design (type of relation x familiarity); the fifth…

The ability of 23 educable mentally retarded children (mean chronological age, 9 years) to transfer verbal elaboration techniques to a labeling task was tested following one, two, or no elaboration experiences. An additional 18 retardates were tested in two outside control conditions to identify the effects of reversal experience on acquisition…

Response latency data from two studies of 30 5-to 7-year-old and 50 3 to- 4-year-old children were analyzed to assess the interrelations of response latencies with previously reported orienting response data and standard learning data. Ss in the first study were tested on an oddity task in three distraction conditions (mirror, sound, and control),…

Two studies investigated characteristics of verbal elaborations (length and number of relations provided by the syntactic construction) to determine what makes them effective mediators for young children. Study I treated the role of an elaboration's length in facilitating paired associate learning in 22 nursery school children. Data indicated that…

Presented are seven child research and development papers delivered at the 1973 American Psychological Association Symposium in Montreal. Described are the beneficial results produced by relevant goal oriented researchers who become directly involved with societal problems. Advocated is the need for psychology to become more historical, empirical,…

The effectiveness of the Time and Money units (which involve language and vocabulary in teaching time and money concepts to primary level retardates) was investigated with 112 nonretarded, 133 educable mentally retarded, and 115 trainable mentally retarded children. (SBH)