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…

Suggests ways to improve secondary school students' locational knowledge. Argues for teaching strategies that emphasize the value of locational information. Discusses the importance of memory in the development of locational skills. Suggests that issue-oriented instruction can promote the development of such skills. (SG)

Learning-disabled junior-high students (N=27) were taught four chapters of U.S. history using either mnemonic instruction or more traditional, textbook based instruction. Students learned substantially more content when instructed mnemonically, on individual chapter tests as well as on the cumulative recall test. Students and teachers both…

Potential benefits for learning that the outdoors may hold have been brought into increased focus in the UK by the recent introduction of a manifesto for learning outside the classroom (DfES, "Learning outside the classroom: manifesto"; Nottingham, Department for Education and Skills, 2006). This article draws on two recent studies of…

Presents strategies for helping students develop their metacognitive abilities. Teachers must specifically encourage thinking about thinking. (MD)

Reports on a study of four Australian 11th-grade biology students that used stimulated recall to evaluate student thinking processes.The study confirmed the complexity of the teaching-learning process. (MD)

A discussion of the ease or difficulty of learning vocabulary words in a second language looks at a variety of issues in second language instruction. Research on factors in vocabulary learning is discussed, focusing on such factors as similarity in form and morphology, deceptive morphological structure, different syntactic patterning in the native…

The learning of a list of 20 Blissymbols and comparable American Sign Language signs by 121 nonhandicapped undergraduate psychology students was compared. Blissymbols were learned significantly faster than manual signs, particularly in early learning trials. Results are discussed in terms of the memory requirements of the two systems. (Author/JDD)

Evaluation of a classroom mnemonic instructional method to teach science content to 19 mildly disabled students (grades 6-8) found mnemonic instruction resulted in improved initial content acquisition, higher delayed-recall scores than traditional instructional procedures, and generalization of mnemonic strategies to novel content. Students…

Discusses research on cognitive styles and strategies. Groups labels into two principle styles. Describes the wholist-analytic style, examining whether an individual tends to process information in wholes or parts, and the verbalizer-imager style considering whether an individual is inclined to represent information during thinking verbally or in…

Gender differences in level and pattern of cognitive abilities were examined in 49 learning-disabled college students. Females were stronger in visual-motor abilities and verbal conceptualization, whereas the males' highest abilities were nonverbal visual-spatial. Both groups showed weaknesses in memory for digits and factual knowledge and in…