Language plays a fundamental role in enabling flexible, goal-directed behaviour. This study investigated whether the contribution of language to instruction encoding is modulated by the expression of autism traits, as measured by the Autism Spectrum Quotient (ASQ) questionnaire. Participants (N = 108) completed six choice reaction time tasks, with…

The first step in engaging deaf and hard of hearing children in language-rich environments is getting their attention. Hearing teachers intuitively raise their voices as they enter their classes to get students' attention; Deaf teachers intuitively wait for the students to look at them. Deaf sign language teachers report that when hearing students…

This study investigated the role of domain-specific and domain-general factors in predicting early literacy skills in Italian children. A sample of 239 first-grade students was evaluated using a broad neuropsychological battery to assess their cognitive skills. The results showed that phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, speed of…

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) show atypical attention, particularly for social events. The new Multisensory Attention Assessment Protocol (MAAP) assesses fine-grained individual differences in attention disengagement, maintenance, and audiovisual matching for social and nonsocial events. We investigated the role of competing…

We examined the relations of language skills (vocabulary, listening comprehension, and oral retell), transcription skills (spelling and handwriting fluency), and domain-general cognitions/executive functions (working memory and attentional control) to writing quality for English-Spanish emergent bilingual children in Grade 1. Data were from a…

Background & Aims: Many young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate striking delays in early vocabulary development. Experimental studies that teach the meanings of novel nonwords can determine the effects of linguistic and attentional factors. One factor that may affect novel referent selection in children with ASD is…

We examined the relations of inference, vocabulary, decoding, short-term memory, and attentional control to reading comprehension and mathematics performance for first-grade students in the US (N = 83). The students were composed of 75% Hispanics, 15% Whites, and 6% Asian Americans. Students' performance on mathematics and reading comprehension…

Purpose: Based on evidence of deficits in domain-general cognitive abilities associated with developmental language disorder (DLD), the current study examined sustained attention performance in children with DLD compared to children with typical language development (TLD) and the interrelations between visual-spatial sustained attention,…

Purpose: The current study examined the role of attention and language ability in nonverbal rule induction performance in a demographically diverse sample of school-age children. Method: The participants included 43 English-speaking monolingual and 65 Spanish-English bilingual children between the ages of 5 and 9 years. Core Language Index…

Theory of mind has received intensive attention in research as an important skill to develop. Furthermore, recent evidence indicates its role in discourse comprehension. In the current study, we examined the mediating role of theory of mind in the relations of foundational language and cognitive skills (working memory, attentional control,…

Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) programs are school-based preventive interventions that aim to improve children's social-emotional skills and behaviors. Although meta-analytic research has shown that SEL programs implemented in early childhood can improve academic and behavioral outcomes in the short-term, there is limited work examining program…

The procedural deficit hypothesis claims that impaired procedural learning is a causal risk factor for developmental dyslexia and developmental language disorder. We investigated the relationships between measures of basic cognitive processes (declarative learning, procedural learning and attention) and measures of attainment (reading, grammar and…

Parent language input is a well-established predictor of child language development. Multisensory attention skills (MASks; intersensory matching, shifting and sustaining attention to audiovisual speech) are also known to be foundations for language development. However, due to a lack of appropriate measures, individual differences in these skills…

This article offers a conceptual and analytical framework for understanding the 'understandings' generated through practitioner research, and specifically exploratory practice (EP), based on Aristotle's philosophy of knowledge. Drawing on Olav Eikeland's interpretation of Aristotle's philosophy of knowledge as a gnoseology, it illustrates how a…

Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) programs are school-based preventive interventions that aim to improve children's social-emotional skills and behaviors. Although meta-analytic research has shown that SEL programs implemented in early childhood can improve academic and behavioral outcomes in the short-term, there is limited work examining program…