This study examines the effects of a working memory (WM) sensitive math intervention in students with learning disabilities (LD). The intervention aims to improve early mathematical competencies while accounting for weak cognitive resources through a reduced instructional design. These principles are considered to be effective for learning. Ten…

In contrast to classical phonological span tasks, which require verbal recall, those used in self-reliant, group-administrable working memory measurement contain a visuospatial response format. As a consequence, these tasks involve recoding, executive, and visual search requirements in addition to encoding and storage processes. To examine…

Background: Early intervention for children identified as late talkers (LTs) at the age of 24 months is still a controversial issue in research and clinical routine. Previous studies have shown inconsistent results regarding predictors of early lexical deficits on school-age outcomes of late-talking toddlers. Methods: In a five-wave follow-up…

Based on the finding that children with mathematical learning difficulties (MLD) have deficits in working memory (WM), the question arises as to whether these children differ from typical learners only in the level or also in the developmental trajectories of WM functioning. To this end, the WM of 80 children with MLD and 71 typical learners was…

Two studies were conducted to investigate effects of domain knowledge on metacognitive monitoring across the life span in materials of different complexity. Participants from 4 age groups (3rd-grade children, adolescents, younger and older adults) were compared using an expert-novice paradigm. In Study 1, soccer experts' and novices'…

Although children with specific reading disorder (RD) have often been compared to typically achieving children on various phonological processing tasks, to our knowledge no study so far has examined whether the structure of phonological processing applies to both groups of children alike. According to Wagner and Torgesen (1987), phonological…

Children experience good and bad days in their performance. Although this phenomenon is well-known to teachers, parents, and students it has not been investigated empirically. We examined whether children's working memory performance varies systematically from day to day and to which extent fluctuations at faster timescales (i.e., occasions,…

The present study was conducted to explore the potential positive influence of a short strategy training on metacognitive monitoring competencies covering a life-span approach. Participants of four age groups (3rd-grade children, adolescents, younger and older adults) concluded a paired-associate learning task. Additionally, they gave delayed…

In transparent orthographies like German, isolated learning disabilities in either reading or spelling are common and occur as often as a combined reading and spelling disability. However, most issues surrounding the cognitive causes of these isolated or combined literacy difficulties are yet unresolved. Recently, working memory dysfunctions have…

Path analysis was used to test theoretical models of relations among variables known to predict differences in children's memory--strategies, capacity, and metamemory. Children in kindergarten to fourth grade (chronological ages 5 to 11) performed different memory tasks. Several strategies (i.e., sorting, clustering, rehearsal, and self-testing)…