Ambridge argues that there is widespread agreement among child language researchers that learners store linguistic abstractions. In this commentary the authors first argue that this assumption is incorrect; anti-representationalist/exemplar views are pervasive in theories of child language. Next, the authors outline what has been learned from this…

Although low levels of memory strategy use have been found in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), few studies have explored the effectiveness of interventions for improving strategy use with this population. In two studies, we examined the short- and longer term effectiveness of rehearsal strategy training. In Study 1, children with…

Under what conditions will people generalize and remember observed social information? Preschool- (n = 44) and young school-age (n = 46) children and adults (n = 40) heard short vignettes describing characters' actions and motives on a single occasion. Characters were introduced using either proper names or category labels. Test questions asked…

Scientific studies of child maltreatment victims' memory abilities and court experiences have important legal, psychological, and clinical implications. However, state-of-the-art research on child witnesses is often hindered by methodological challenges. In this paper, we address specific problems investigators may encounter when attempting such…

Tested 3-, 5-, and 8-year-olds on temporal generalization with visual stimuli. Found increasing sharpness of generalization gradient with increasing age, and change from symmetrical to adult-like asymmetrical generalization gradients among 8-year-olds. Theoretical models attributed changes to increasing precision of the reference memory with…

Examines children's memory for preschool routines as a function of current grade level and successive modifications in the school-day script. First, children in preschool through third grade were tested, then children in kindergarten through third grade. Results showed a process of generalization for preschool scripts over time. (Author/BB)

Reports the findings of a series of long-term maintenance tests and a generalization phase given to a group of educable mentally retarded children more than one year after they were trained to use self-checking routines for estimating test readiness. (JMB)

Twenty-five children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 25 children with normal language (NL) were presented with novel vocabulary and bound-morpheme learning tasks. SLI children had significantly lower vocabulary learning levels and less ability to generalize bound morphemes than NL children. Results support the storage/access but not…