Proposed guidelines have been published recently (Al-Hilawani, 2016) to help identify and determine for the first time the existence of learning disabilities among students in the Middle East Arab (M.E.A.) countries. These guidelines have been drawn from recent and up-to-date information available on learning disabilities. The purpose of this…

In an exploration of the comprehension process of the beginning reader, 16 first and second grade students were each asked to listen to two stories--one a narrative account and the other an expository passage-- and then immediately to retell them. Recall protocols were compared by propositional analysis for text-related superordinate and…

The article underlines the necessity for a systematic approach to the development of learning comprehension skills. Through pilot testing, two distinctly different approaches (logical vs. psychological) are compared. Given the results in favor of the psychological approach, questions concerning its implementation and what should follow are raised.…

In an investigation of comprehension strategies in young children, children in R. Brown's Stages I, II, and III responded to commands varying in length, grammaticality, and meaning. (SB)

This study attempted to determine: (1) whether lower-order units (agent or agent-action) within the agent-action-recipient relationship exist in any functional way in the 1-word infant's comprehension of speech; and (2) whether the use of repetition and/or reduced length (common modifications in adult-to-infant speech) used to focus on these…

Discusses how the learning of reading skills can be combined with the teaching of musical skills. (MM)

Provides a rationale for using television as a means of instruction and presents a model for capitalizing on television as a connection to reading. Includes a sample task sheet. (TJ)

This is a survey of techniques that have been used to test language comprehension. The study of research completed in this field points up the fact that there is no single technique that universally gives valid and reliable information. Various definitions of language comprehension are examined with special emphasis placed on implications for the…

Results of a verbal sound and meaning discrimination test to check the hypothesis of Alajouanine et al.--that two types of paraphasics can be distinguished, phonemic and semantic--are discussed. The former are impaired in tests of auditory language discrimination, the latter show regression of the semantic values apparent in their linguistic…

Compared were a programmed approach to a conventional approach. (CH)

Offers an introduction to the organization and content of a brochure on the development of understanding while hearing (Ecoutez bien. Texte zur Entwicklung des verstehenden Hoerens. Collected by E. Vollmer and L. Pohl. Volk und Wissen, Berlin, 1974). (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Metacognition refers to an individual's knowledge concerning his/her own cognitive processes. Children's metacognitive strategies were examined in a study predicated upon R.J. Spiro's hypothesis that subjects tend to reproduce (literally recall) text information in formal situations and to reconstruct (inferentially recall) it in informal…

Describes research that tested the validity of a set of guidelines for a program for the systematic development of listening comprehension skills. (DD)