We report on rapid perceptual learning of intonation contour categories in adults and 9- to 11-year-old children. Intonation contours are temporally extended patterns, whose perception requires temporal integration and therefore poses significant working memory challenges. Both children and adults form relatively abstract representations of…

Perceptual representations of objects and approximate magnitudes are often invoked as building blocks that children combine to acquire the positive integers. Systems of numerical perception are either assumed to contain the logical foundations of arithmetic innately, or to supply the basis for their induction. I propose an alternative to this…

Purpose: Implicit statistical learning in 2 nonlinguistic domains (visual and auditory) was used to investigate (a) whether linguistic experience influences the underlying learning mechanism and (b) whether there are modality constraints in predicting implicit statistical learning with age and language skills. Method: Implicit statistical learning…

The Woodcock-Johnson-Fourth edition (WJ IV; Schrank, McGrew, & Mather, 2014a) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fifth edition (WISC-V; Wechsler, 2014) are two of the major tests of cognitive abilities used in school psychology. The complete WJ IV battery includes the Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Cognitive Abilities (Schrank,…

Adults can improve their performance on many perceptual tasks with training, but when does the response to training become mature? To investigate this question, we trained 11-year-olds, 14-year-olds and adults on a basic auditory task (temporal-interval discrimination) using a multiple-session training regimen known to be effective for adults. The…

Decades of research have demonstrated that deaf children generally lag behind hearing peers in terms of academic achievement, and that lags in some areas may never be overcome fully. Hundreds of research and intervention studies have been aimed at improving the situation, but they have resulted in only limited progress. This paper examines…

A comprehensive investigation of the neuropsychological strengths and weaknesses of children with autism may help to better describe their cognitive abilities and to design appropriate interventions. To this end we compared the NEPSY-II profiles of 22 children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders (HFASD) with those of 44 healthy control…

It is possible that statistical learning (SL) plays a role in almost every mental activity. Indeed, research on SL has grown rapidly over recent decades in an effort to better understand perception and cognition. Yet, there remain gaps in our understanding of how SL operates, in particular with regard to its (im)mutability. Here, we investigated…

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of several specific neurocognitive functions in developmental dyslexia (DD). The performances of 60 dyslexic children and 65 age-matched normally reading children were compared on tests of phonological abilities, visual processing, selective and sustained attention, implicit learning, and executive…

Two experiments examined the effect of haptic exploration on visual recognition of nonsense forms by 4- to 7-year-old children. In Experiment 1, haptic activity was optional for S. The amount and type of activity was rated. Those Ss who voluntarily produced haptic activity reached criterion in a repeated exposure-test recognition task in fewer…

Psychosocial development is the focus of this psychology textbook. In part 1, a view of human development and society, the following areas are covered: (1) basic concepts of psychosocial development; (2) ways of viewing human development; and (3) dilemmas in human development. Part 2, the development of symbolic behavior and special factors in…

Ten test films were developed to measure aspects of children's visual perception which are difficult to assess through conventional paper and pencil tests. The film medium was selected because it allows the presentation of temporal, as well as spacial, aspects of the stimuli. Four areas of perceptual performance covered in the films are: (1)…

Among 294 children of three to eight years, tactual oddity learning increased gradually with age. The finding of bidirectional cross-modal transfer of oddity learning supported the suggestion that such transfer occurs when training and transfer oddity tasks share a common vehicle dimension. Results are considered consistent with the view that…

Used multiple-baseline design to assess the utility of presenting three types of cues when teaching an abstract concept such as colors to three children with autism: plain, label, and symbol. Found colors presented with cues were easier to learn than color without cues. Findings support the need for sensitivity for the highly individualized…