This study purports to bridge the gap in research directed at people with Low Functioning Autism (LFA) by exploring if sensory discrimination ability can be used to assess cognitive functioning in children with LFA. The study was done in two phases: (i) a pilot phase (with 4 male participants; mean age = 3 years 6.5 months)--which tried to…

Background: Prior studies have showed that presentation methods could affect the accuracy of a choice assessment. Methods: In the current study, high- and low- preferred work tasks were identified in nine adults with developmental disabilities. Both tasks were then introduced in pairs within a choice assessment using the actual tasks, pictures of…

THE HYPOTHESIS THAT ENVIRONMENTAL CIRCUMSTANCES INFLUENCE THE PROCESS OF KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION IS DISCUSSED. THE ROLE OF PARTIAL AND FULL SENSORY ISOLATION AND DEPRIVATION AND ITS NEGATIVE EFFECT ON LEARNING IS SHOWN TO BE SUPPORTED BY RESEARCH. THE INSTITUTE FOR DEVELOPMENTAL STUDIES AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY IS ENGAGED IN RESEARCH DEALING WITH THE…

In a study of oddity performance, subjects were required to choose one distinct bimodal stimulus from a display that included other stimuli that did not differ from each other. Oddity performance was evaluated with both reversal assessments and assessments with new stimuli. The usefulness of bimodal training in oddity learning was demonstrated.…

A report is presented which relates to a general hypothesis suggested by previous data on visual response to faces that in the first weeks of life infants develop expectations regarding the human face. Three predictions were made: (1) Silent human faces would elicit less direct regard than faces accompanied by voices; (2) A familiar face would…

Following a review of the literature on responses of autistic persons to environmental stimulation, three experiments are detailed which examine the relationship between modality preference and rate of acquisition of a discrimination task. First, seven autistic children's preference for colored lights and/or simple tones was assessed in a sensory…

First and third grade children's ability to coordinate reading and listening was studied using a "mismatch detection" task. A total of 15 first grade children and 15 third grade children of average to below average reading ability read printed texts while listening to recordings of the same texts, in which extraneous spoken words were…

The purposes of this study were to assess the effect of phoneme-grapheme consistency (PGC) and cue emphasis (CE) on the development of decoding skills in first graders and to determine the relationship of consistency of original lists to the recognition of new words. Subjects were 162 first graders, mean age 6.11 years and scoring above 30 on the…

Research findings are reviewed concerning infants' abilities to discriminate parents from other social stimuli during the first 6 months of life. The term "discrimination" is used to signify the ability of infants to respond differentially to two or more social stimuli. Studies reviewed are categorized in terms of the visual, auditory,…

The ability of infants to recognize their mothers as distinct from others was investigated by presenting 6 boys and 6 girls at two age levels (5 weeks and 13 weeks) with the following six sequential stimulus conditions: (1) mother's face (MO); (2) stranger's face (SO); (3) mother's face with stranger's voice (MS); (4) stranger's face with mother's…

Two factors of predicted learning disorders were investigated: (1) inability to maintain appropriate classroom behavior (BEH), (2) perceptual discrimination deficit (PERC). Three groups of first-graders (BEH, PERC, normal control) were administered measures of impulse control, distractability, auditory discrimination, and visual discrimination.…

In two studies with 50 male and 50 female undergraduates, differences in learning highly interfering paired-associate discrimination tasks were compared with or without visual mediational cues and with aural cues only. Visual mediational instruction reduced interference between similar signals and facilitated their association with the correct…

Intended for secondary English teachers, the materials and ideas presented here suggest ways to use media in the classroom in teaching visual and auditory discrimination while enlivening classes and motivating students. Contents include "Media Specialists Need Not Apply," which discusses the need for preparation of media educators with…

Three projects were designed to develop and evaluate materials for use with aphasic children (perceptually handicapped with language problems). The first project presented stimulus pairs in varying modality conditions. Results suggested that, although the aphasic children were not capable of improving their auditory discrimination performance,…

This monograph is a collection of papers describing a series of loosely related studies of visual attention, auditory stimulation, and language discrimination in young infants. Titles include: (1) Infant Attention and Discrimination: Methodological and Substantive Issues; (2) The Addition of Auditory Stimulation (Music) and an Interspersed…