The study examines whether the average performance of the population with dyslexia in a working memory measure can be inferred dimensionally from the characteristics of the typical population. Specifically, we focused on Associative Phonological Working Memory (APWM), an ability that we predicted being impaired in dyslexia due to the relationship…

Mental effort expended during the creation of sentence elaborations by fifth graders performing two simultaneous tasks was greater for inaccessible than accessible pairs. The difference was not observed when subjects were provided with pair members in sentences. (RH)

Study investigated incidental learning of word meanings from context during normal reading. Effects of word and text properties were examined in detail. Small but reliable gains in knowledge were found at all grade levels and ability levels tested. (RB)

Investigated children's word association in third graders (N=39) by randomizing and reading out 1 at a time 24 concrete nouns belonging to 12 categories. Found 20 out of 24 words evoked more paradigmatic than syntagmatic responses, with category names predominant, indicating children were organizing ideas at higher levels. (ABL)

The factors underlying memory performance in learning are shown to be affected by strategic processing and by automatic processing. Strategic processing is under the conscious control and effort of the learner while automatic processing is dependent on the strength of associations between new concepts and known concepts in a given domain.…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether motor activity, previously assumed necessary to induce visual imagery in young children's associative learning, actually has to be executed in order for children to generate images. The results of an experiment with 96 kindergartners clearly suggest not: in conditions where subjects simply planned…

A study was conducted to test the hypothesis that high-variability rehearsal more effectively facilitates word recall than does low-variability rehearsal. Third-grade and sixth-grade students were asked to memorize a list of 20 common words. A read-aloud rehearsal procedure was used so that rehearsal could be experimentally controlled. One word…

There are basically two different models for the word recognition process. One model postulates that a reader primarily uses sound/symbol cues to recognize a word; a second model states that a reader focuses mainly on whole-word characteristics. To determine which model best fits beginning and adult readers, a multiple regression analysis was…

Research investigating vocabulary and comprehension achievement, intelligence quotients, and reading error analysis indicates that dependence on within-word (intraword) characteristics is more important for beginning reading success than is reliance on between-word (interword) analysis. (CJ)

Artificial symbol-word correspondence in a simple paired associate learning task were used to determine whether disabled readers have a general problem dealing with complex and/or irregular rule systems. The performance of 36 normal readers and 36 disabled readers in grades 4 through 7 was compared. Disabled readers had IQ scores of 87 or above…

An adaptation of the Fluency in Controlled Association subtest of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination was administered to language-disordered (N=123) and non-disabled (N=286) kindergarten through ninth-grade students. Lack of significant differences on this task suggests that it may not be an appropriate screening device for identifying…

Supports the hypothesis that, with time held constant, children instructed to build relationships between text and their knowledge and experience and among the different parts of a text comprehend that text better than do children who are not so instructed. (AEA)

This paper reports on three separate experiments conducted to examine the roles of particular task and subject characteristics in noun pair learning. In all three studies noun pairs were presented either in noun-verb-noun-conjunction-pronoun (NVNCP) or noun-conjunction-noun-verb-pronoun (NCNVP) contexts. In experiment 1, learning was assessed…

Specific comparisons for a categorized set of items indicated that recall of detailed drawings and outlines was superior to recall of words. For an uncategorized set, outlines were recalled significantly better than pictures and both were recalled better than words. (Author/PN)

Incentive motivation effects on stimulus encoding of elementary school students was investigated by pairing words associated with two levels of semantic elaboration with two levels of monetary rewards and testing through recall. (CM)