Deaf and hearing adults perceive faces differently. This study investigates whether these differences are acquired during childhood development. We characterized facial perception in deaf and hearing children aged 7-17 using a perceptual discrimination task. Configural and featural information was manipulated in the eye and mouth facial regions.…

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often excel on visual search and crowding tasks; however, inconsistent findings suggest that this 'islet of ability' may not be characteristic of the entire spectrum. We examined whether performance on these tasks changed as a function of motor proficiency in children with varying levels of ASD…

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a prevalent disorder affecting about 5% of children reported to be linked with poor academic, social and occupational outcomes. The aim of the study was to test the visuo-motor performance of children with ADHD. The Design Copying subtest (NEPSY-II) was used to test visuo-motor functions. A total…

Humans and other animals are able to make rough estimations of quantities using what has been termed the "approximate number system" (ANS). Much evidence suggests that sensitivity to numerosity correlates with symbolic math capacity, leading to the suggestion that the ANS may serve as a start-up tool to develop symbolic math. Many…

This study introduces the new Rotated Colour Cube Test (RCCT) as a measure of object identification and mental rotation using single 3D colour cube images in a matching-to-sample procedure. One hundred 7- to 11-year-old children were tested with aligned or rotated cube models, distracters and targets. While different orientations of distracters…

To act and think, children and adults are continually required to ignore irrelevant visual information to focus on task-relevant items. As real-world visual information is organized into structures, we designed a feature visual search task containing 3-level hierarchical stimuli (i.e., local shapes that constituted intermediate shapes that formed…

Evidence suggests that people with autism rely less on holistic visual information than typical adults. The current studies examine this by investigating core visual processes that contribute to holistic processing--namely, individuation and element grouping--and how they develop in participants with autism and typically developing (TD)…

Multisensory integration of spatial information occurs late in childhood, at around eight years (Gori, Del Viva, Sandini, & Burr, 2008). For younger children, the haptic system dominates size discrimination and vision dominates orientation discrimination: the dominance may reflect "sensory calibration," and could have direct consequences on…

Stimulus overselectivity is widely accepted as a stimulus control abnormality in autism spectrum disorders and subsets of other populations. Previous research has demonstrated a link between both chronological and mental age and overselectivity in typical development. However, the age at which children are developmentally ready to respond to…

Williams Syndrome (WS) is a developmental disorder typified by deficits in visuospatial cognition. To understand the nature of this deficit, we characterized how people with WS perceive visual orientation, a fundamental ability related to object identification. We compared WS participants to typically developing children (3-6 years of age) and…

The ability to interpret emotions in facial expressions is crucial for social functioning across the lifespan. Facial expression recognition develops rapidly during infancy and improves with age during the preschool years. However, the developmental trajectory from late childhood to adulthood is less clear. We tested older children, adolescents…

The aim of the two present experiments was to examine the ontogenetic development of the dissociation between perception and action in children using the Duncker illusion. In this illusion, a moving background alters the perceived direction of target motion. Targets were held stationary while appearing to move in an induced displacement. In…

Reversal and nonreversal shifts in 19 2- to 14-year-old autistic children were studied. Results indicated that the older autistic children did better on reversal shifts than did younger children, who performed better on nonreversal shifts. Findings were consistent with those for normal children. (Author)

The hypothesis that perceptual development proceeds from less to greater dimensional separability was tested by giving a speeded classification task to first and fourth graders. Results supported the hypothesis that development proceeds toward greater flexibility of attention rather than simply toward increasing separability. (Author/DB)

Children, ages 9 to 13 years, made judgments of proportion with a variety of graphical elements in 2 experiments. A characteristic pattern of over- and underestimation was observed; this pattern was also present, but previously unnoticed, in judgments made by adults. (MDM)