THE PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY WAS TO DETERMINE THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF FIVE VARIABLES (INITIAL INSTRUCTIONS, REWARD, LETTER SIZE, TYPE OF WARM-UP, AND FEEDBACK) ON KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN'S PERFORMANCE OF A LETTER DISCRIMINATION TASK. IT HAS BEEN ARGUED THAT ATTENTION IS THE KEY FACTOR IN LETTER DISCRIMINATION. THE PRESENT STUDY PROPOSES THAT A…

Two 4-year-old children were shown the use of an apparatus whereby they could obtain toys and candy by making certain responses. The apparatus was a matching-to-sample device on which were arranged five response buttons in a circle and one in the middle. Each response button had a display window for the stimulus. Four of the five windows on the…

Preschoolers learned colors more rapidly than sizes and forms when cup stimuli were used. They learned sizes and forms more rapidly than colors when face stimuli were used. (RL)

Investigators in this study looked for conditions that can rapidly establish continuous stimulus control of continuous response variations, or "response mapping." Unlike previous research in stimulus control, where a single stimulus comes to control a single response, 36 5-year-old children received errorless discrimination training at…

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.…

Four studies with infants and preschool-age children examined various pattern perception tasks considered to be related to the perceptual basis of the development of reading skills. Study 1 used 28 neonates to test the hypothesis that supplemental stimulation (rocking, patting, holding) has measurable effects upon attention to visual patterns.…

Reproduction training improved performance only on the reproduction test; discrimination training improved performance only on the discrimination test. The effects of discrimination were seen both on forms used in training and on other similar forms, while the effects of reproduction training were seen only on trained forms. (Author/BJG)

Study supported by grants from the University of Connecticut Research Foundation and from the U.S. Office of Education.

Four-, five-, and six-year-old children were used as subjects in this investigation. There were 192 experimental and 96 control children used, divided equally between the three age groups. The experimental children received a 1-minute pretest exposure procedure in which 1/4 of the children observed 4 two-dimensional stimuli (irregular pentagons),…

This guide provides group activities for teachers to aid in planning a multicultural curriculum for developing sensory perception in children. The guide emphasizes the cognitive processes involved in sorting out sensory data and the use of multicultural materials as resources for sensory experience. Activities are presented in six sections.…

In the first experiment, the development of the ability to copy alphabet letters by black males aged 3-9 (middle and low S.E.S.) was studied, using a newly-developed scoring system. In the second experiment, kindergarteners learned to associate letter names with six lower-case printed letters by the anticipation method. The addition of an…