The study investigated perceptual preferences of five autistic children (mean age 10.6 years). Results indicated a weak (not statistically significant) preference for auditory musical stimuli over visual stimuli. Autistic children spent significantly more time than did normals with the musical stimulus. (Author/DB)

Scores of 25 learning disabled students (aged 9 to 13) were compared on five tests: a visual-perceptual test (Coloured Progressive Matrices); an auditory-perceptual test (Auditory Motor Placement); a listening and reading comprehension test (Durrell Listening-Reading Series); and a word recognition test (Word Recognition subtest, Diagnostic…

Development of the relation between skills of visual and auditory pattern classification was studied at the second grade, sixth grade, and adult age levels using visual and auditory representations of the same abstract information. Results showed evidence of common processing of pattern class structure for the modalities, patterns, prototypes, and…

The use of a nonvisual tactual and auditory tutorial method to teach initial reading skills to 16 reading disabled children (ages 7 to 14) was evaluated. The method was shown to be less effective than sighted methods. (DB)

Visual and auditory coding processes in learning-disabled students (SLDs, n=19) and control students (SCs, n=19) were examined. Analysis of decision latencies revealed that with initial task exposure, SLDs responded more slowly than SCs, but confusability patterns were similar. With practice, overall latencies became comparable, while…

The author discusses the role of educational "crutches" that help elementary learning disabled children in tasks involving spatial orientation, visual perception, and auditory short-term memory. Teachers are cautioned to observe how children act in different situations and to allow them whatever "crutches" are effective. (CL)

A non-verbal 12-year-old boy with low functioning autism was tested on an auditory word-to-picture selection task. Picture foils were chosen to have visual features, semantic features, both, or neither in common with the correct answer. Errors were made more often to semantically than to visually related items. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Visual and auditory paired-associate learning tasks were presented to 125 fourth grade children (45 learning disabled, 39 border line learning disabled, and 41 nonlearning disabled). The visual task produced a greater number of correct responses than did the auditory task. There were no differences among groups on either task. Scores on the…

Primacy and recency aspects of short term memory (STM) were investigated with 30 learning disabled (LD) and 30 normal children, all with a mean age of 113 months. The pretest experiment compared the serial position curve performance of LD and normal children when seven-digit series were presented visually or auditorially. The second experiment…

This study presents results from an experiment designed to assess whether the employment of teaching approaches consistent with the auditory or visual perceptual strengths of disadvantaged boys would facilitate their ability to learn and retain a list of unknown words. Two groups of 20 pupils were identified from a sample of 105 subjects. One…

This study compared children with either attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (n=24), reading disability (RD) (n=33), both (n=9), or controls. Children with ADHD were characterized by difficulty with a visual search task whereas children with RD had difficulty with an auditory processing task. Specifically, children with ADHD…

Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children scores obtained by 20 Down's syndrome children (ages 8-12) were compared with scores of 20 younger siblings and 20 nonretarded children matched for mental age. Among results were that Down's syndrome children performed significantly better on subtests employing visual as opposed to auditory channels of…

Results indicated no interaction between modality preference and reading method. The visual method of teaching resulted in higher achievement regardless of modality preference; however, children with an auditory modality preference were generally superior in achievement compared to those with a visual preference. (Author)

Sixteen school-age children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 16 age-matched controls were tested for immediate recall of digits presented visually, auditorily, or audiovisually. Recall tasks compared speaking and pointing response modalities. SLI children showed small recency effects as well as an unusually poor recall when visually…