Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine which factors contribute to the lexical learning deficits of children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method: Participants included 40 7-8-year old participants, half of whom were diagnosed with SLI and half of whom had normal language skills. We tested hypotheses about the contributions…

The present study examines whether the seductive-details effect is moderated by spatial ability and prior knowledge, which are two of the most relevant learner characteristics in multimedia learning. It is assumed that the seductive-details effect with an increase in extraneous cognitive load and a decrease in perceptual processing and learning…

In transparent orthographies like German, isolated learning disabilities in either reading or spelling are common and occur as often as a combined reading and spelling disability. However, most issues surrounding the cognitive causes of these isolated or combined literacy difficulties are yet unresolved. Recently, working memory dysfunctions have…

The present study aimed to examine the nature of the working memory and general cognitive ability deficits experienced by university students with a specific reading comprehension deficit. A total of 32 university students with poor reading comprehension but average word-reading skills and 60 age-word-matched controls with no comprehension…

A meta-analysis was undertaken to reexamine near- and far-transfer effects following working-memory training and to consider potential moderators more systematically. Forty-seven studies with 65 group comparisons were included in the meta-analysis. Results showed near-transfer effects to short-term and working-memory skills that were sustained at…

The main purposes of this study were to test the effects of teaching at-risk 4th graders to provide explanations for their mathematics work and examine whether those effects occur by compensating for limitations in cognitive processes. We randomly assigned 212 children to 3 conditions: a control group and 2 variants of a multi-component fraction…

In 2011, pepnet 2 launched the Deaf Learner Initiative (DLI). The goals of this initiative were to examine the existing paradigms, programs, pedagogy and relevant research related to the educational and vocational needs of deaf learners. The DLI was comprised of a variety of activities including the Deaf Learner Symposium, the creation of three…

Reading academic hypertext documents in college brings a new level of complexity that changes the definition of college reading and literacy. Knowing how to read these unpredictable, nonlinear texts requires familiarity and practice. The author describes the nature and usefulness of hypertext, reviews the challenges of reading hypertext, and…

Tests of attentional control, working memory, and planning were administered to compare the non-verbal executive control performance of healthy children from different socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition, mediations of several sociodemographic variables, identified in the literature as part of the experience of child poverty, between…

This study broadly examines executive (EF) and visuo-motor function in 30 adolescent and adult individuals with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in comparison to 28 controls matched for age, gender, and IQ. ASD individuals showed impaired spatial working memory, whereas planning, cognitive flexibility, and inhibition were spared.…

A novel explanation of belief bias in relational reasoning is presented based on the role of working memory and retrieval in deductive reasoning, and the influence of prior knowledge on this process. It is proposed that belief bias is caused by the believability of a conclusion in working memory which influences its activation level, determining…

Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorders (ADHD) and Autistic-Spectrum-Disorders (ASD) share overlapping clinical and cognitive features that may confuse the diagnosis. Evaluation of executive problems and planning dysfunction may aid the clinical diagnostic process and help disentangle the neurobiological process underlying these conditions. This…

We examined reading comprehension in children with ADHD by assessing their ability to build a coherent mental representation that allows them to recall central and peripheral information. We compared children with ADHD (mean age 9.78) to word reading-matched controls (mean age 9.89) on their ability to retell a passage. We found that even though…

There is a plethora of research suggesting that daily stressors and fatigue can have a significant effect on learning and various cognitive functions in young adults. Little is known, however, about how these effects impact learning and other neurocognitive functions in students with learning challenges when compared to their counterparts without…

In this training study, we aimed to selectively train participants' filtering mechanisms to enhance visual working memory (WM) efficiency. The highly restricted nature of visual WM capacity renders efficient filtering mechanisms crucial for its successful functioning. Filtering efficiency in visual WM can be measured via the lateralized change…