We present a neural network model of referent identification in a visual world task. Inputs are visual representations of item pairs unfolding with sequences of phonemes identifying the target item. The model is trained to output the semantic representation of the target and to suppress the distractor. The training set uses a 200-word lexicon…

The Conference at the University of Oviedo, Spain, within the 44th Annual Meeting of the International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities, was an excellent opportunity to share knowledge, explore perspectives and reflect on the study of neurodevelopmental disorders in Europe and elsewhere in the world. The William M. Cruickshank…

The brain is a complex organ with an intellectual capacity that is unique to humans. For educators, it is wise to study the brain's many attributes and how it functions to help guide, inform, and improve teaching practice. Learners' brains are particularly sensitive to certain kinds of stimuli--that is social, physical, cognitive, and emotional…

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), sometimes referred to as concussion, is one of the most common acquired neurological problems of childhood. When children return to school following mTBI, school psychologists should be actively involved in the determination of neurocognitive and functional deficits for the purpose of designing strength-based…

This longitudinal case study presents John's journey through childhood and adolescence, living with visual difficulties associated with a cerebral visual impairment. It highlights the day-to-day problems that John encountered, giving practical solutions and strategies that have enabled his dream of going to a university to be realized. John and…

Perceiving objects activates the representation of their affordances. For example, experiments on compatibility effects showed that categorizing objects by producing certain handgrips (power or precision) is faster if the requested responses are compatible with the affordance elicited by the size of objects (e.g., small or large). The article…

The principles of Hungarian music educator Zoltan Kodaly can be particularly useful not only in teaching children how to read music notation but also in creating curiosity and enjoyment for reading music. Many of Kodaly's ideas pertaining to music literacy have been echoed by educators such as Jerome Bruner and Edwin Gordon, as well as current…

Much of our human mental life looks to involve a seamless unfolding of perception, action and experience: a golden braid in which each element twines intimately with the rest. We see the very world we act in and we act in the world we see. But more than this, visual experience presents us with the world in a way apt for the control and fine…

The primary purpose of Del Giacco's Neuro-Art Therapy is to help the client regenerate the sensory system at a decoding/encoding (for our purposes we use the two words interchangeably) levels in the brain while using developmental visual spatial exercises or the Therapeutic Drawing Series (TDS). The specialty of Del Giacco Neuro Art Therapy (DAT)…

Visual backward masking is a versatile tool for understanding principles and limitations of visual information processing in the human brain. However, the mechanisms underlying masking are still poorly understood. In the current contribution, the authors show that a structurally simple mathematical model can explain many spatial and temporal…

An object that moves is spotted almost effortlessly; it "pops out." When the observer is stationary, a moving object is uniquely identified by retinal motion. This is not so when the observer is also moving; as the eye travels through space all scene objects change position relative to the eye producing a complicated field of retinal motion.…

Early experience preserves and refines many capabilities that emerge prenatally. Here we describe another role that it plays--establishing the neural substrate for capabilities that emerge at a much later point in development. The evidence comes from sleeper effects: permanent deficits when early experience was absent in capabilities that normally…

The central and peripheral visual fields are structurally segregated in the brain and are differentiated by their anatomical and functional characteristics. While the central field appears well suited for tasks such as visual search, the periphery is optimized for rapid processing over broad regions. People vary in their abilities to make use of…

In the paper, we discuss the importance of network interactions between brain regions in mediating performance of sensorimotor and cognitive tasks, including those associated with language processing. Functional neuroimaging, especially PET and fMRI, provide data that are obtained essentially simultaneously from much of the brain, and thus are…

Many studies of eye tracking or event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in subjects with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) have yielded inconsistent results on attentional processing. However, recent studies have indicated that there are specific abnormalities in early processing that are probably related to perception. ERP amplitudes in…