Even when two-digit numbers are irrelevant to the task at hand, adults process them. Do children process numbers automatically, and if so, what kind of information is activated? In a novel dot-number Stroop task, children (Grades 1-5) and adults were shown two different two-digit numbers made up of dots. Participants were asked to select the…

Purpose: This study examined the development of timing characteristics in early spontaneous speech of children who were later identified as having reading disability (RD). Method: Child-adult play sessions were recorded longitudinally at 2 and 3 years of age in 27 children, most of whom were at high familial risk for RD. For each speaking turn,…

Four multiply handicapped students (aged 5-11) received skill instruction under four experimental conditions, involving differing teacher wait-times and intertrial interval durations. Student performance was superior under the long wait-time conditions irrespective of the length of the intertrial interval. (Author/JDD)

Evaluated effects of time pressure on attributions made and solutions generated in hypothetical social problem situations by aggressive and nonaggressive boys. Found a greater level of arousal in the time pressure condition than the untimed condition across all subjects and greater numbers, more types, and more aggressive solutions. (SD)

The use of time in school, specifically the portion of time defined as active responding time, has been shown to correlate significantly with achievement. The comprehensive observational methodology of the academic engaged time studies provides the basis for systematically investigating student responding time and elements of the educational…

Investigation of grammaticality judgments and decision times for 21 children in 2 age groups (ages 6-7 and ages 8-9) found good sensitivity to grammatical errors, with errors in word order more readily detected than errors of morphological selection. Older children processed errors somewhat more quickly. (Author/DB)

The effect of different instructional variables on students' academic responding time was the focus of the current study. A total of 54 students from 10 classrooms in 5 suburban elementary schools served as subjects. In each school, six students were randomly selected from each of two classrooms, resulting in a group of 22 third graders and 32…

Simple reaction times of 13 stuttering and 13 nonstuttering children (8-12 years old) matched for age, sex, and handedness were compared in experimental conditions requiring button-pressing responses and nonspeech and speech-like responses. Results of the forefinger data suggested that stuttering is not related to an organically based overall…

Four experiments investigated memory scanning rates of skilled and less skilled readers. In three experiments, reaction times of skilled readers were faster than those of less skilled readers with reading time partialled out (aloud and silent reading). Differences were not significant when the scan component in answering was minimized. (Author/RD)

A study was conducted to determine if attentional difficulties would be found in reading disabled children and to discover if increasing the complexity of a task would result in a relative decrease in the performance of the children. Twelve dyslexic boys, aged eight and nine, and 12 normal subjects similar in age and IQ participated in the study.…

Good readers and poor readers (aged 7, 9, and 11) responded to stimuli matchable by physical similarity (e.g., A-A) or by name (e.g., A-a). The lack of a significant age or reading competence interaction with the type of match was interpreted as an inability of the poor reader to reduce required visual processing through anticipation. (Author/CP)

Children referred for evaluation of learning impairment (n=100) and 243 typical children were evaluated on a visual filtering task. With each additional processing demand, response times increased disproportionately for children with learning impairments. Overall response time predicted academic skills and cognitive ability, but was more strongly…

Vocal reaction time of 16 hearing and 25 hearing impaired children (7-14 years old) in response to visually presented stimuli was measured in four tasks. Differences between normal and hearing impaired increased systematically with the phonetic complexity of the task. Hearing level and latency in the counting responses were major predictors of…

To determine whether children's knowledge of arithmetic facts becomes increasingly "automatic" with age, 7-year-olds, 11-year-olds, and adults were given a number-matching task for which mental arithmetic should have been irrelevant. Specifically, students were required to verify the presence of a probe number in a previously presented pair (e.g.,…

Differences in the rates of visual information-processing in 8- and 10-year-old reflective and impulsive children were measured. (JMB)